Explosive Choices
by Small Mistake
Summary: Katrina Shepard has a lot of specialists to aid in her fight against the Collectors, but not one is trained solely in demolitions. Enter Jax Weaver, former member of Garrus' team on Omega, left for dead and devoid of any loved ones left; a perfect fit for a suicide mission. But that all depends on him not finding a new reason to live for, or a person.
1. Not Dead Yet

Garrus's fingers danced a practiced symphony across the holographic interface as he touched down the skycar. Despite the black tint of the windows, the artificial white light was still a shade too harsh, or maybe he had just become too accustomed to the dark corners of Omega's streets for too long. He scowled, an expression that had become all too familiar on his face, or at least what was left of it after his near fatal extraction courtesy of Shepard. He mentally batted away his thoughts, returning himself back to the mission at hand but on the Citadel, the simulated sunlight pretending to shimmer though LCD-screen generated clouds and the trees taken from half a dozen different worlds that couldn't possibly coexist without specific nutrient plans, everything was too perfect to ignore its hypocrisy. He had learned that during his C-Sec days, but it had only been thanks to his time on Omega that he had learned to hate it, at least there they stuck the gun in your face rather than drawing on your back. Unconsciously, his hand fell to his pistol strapped his hip, making sure it was loaded and ready. There was one shot missing from the clip, he knew exactly where he had fired it. "Harkin's a bloody menace" he growled at Shepard in the passenger seat to his right. "We shouldn't have just let him go, he deserved to punished." Sure, in truth he had put a round through his thigh and he had made sure to miss the femoral artery present in most species but Harkin should have been forced to endure some true pain, Garrus knew a lot of families who had been denied justice because of Fade's actions. Harkin had squealed and swore but he didn't know pain, not true pain, one you can't hide, swallow or bury, something inescapable that waits at the fringes of your brain to strike when you let your guard down, distracted, happy or near slumber.

* * *

 _Pushing the skycar as fast as it could go, feeling the bodywork warp around a pipe that he cut too close. The gravity was less finely tuned than that of the Citadel and it showed, the car was harder to bank, the inertia of shifting the car upwards and down again lasted that extra half second longer. "This is Archangel" he shouted into the comm again, for what had to be the fifth time. "Anyone respond!" The comm didn't answer, not even static broke the silence. "If any member is hearing this, prepare for imminent attack!" He was virtually screaming now. The pricks of silence were now nails, inching further and further under his plates, his doubts and fears virtually ripping them out of his flesh and bones. First Sidonis hadn't arrived, then he received the report of heavy Blood Pack troop movement, and not just a routine patrol they had instigated out of necessity since he had began raiding them. Then comms had gone dark altogether, enough question marks had stacked up for him to worry, C-Sec, Spectre training, his father's teachings, they had all contributed to the clockwork of gears ticking in his mind, and now all of them screamed that they were all in danger. He had run back to the skycar and was flying back as fast as the engines would allow without blowing a repulser. He flashed back to the moment as the car's display flashed red with heat warnings as he flew straight through the flames of excess gas burning off from a complex. He had been forced to park a short distance away due to his fears that they would be waiting for him, rocket launchers at the ready and again, he was horribly right. His eye narrowed behind his visor as his trigger clenched, and a vorcha's brains painted the wall behind its head. He loosed two more shots, one punching through a krogan's eye and the other blowing off a vorcha's leg, leaving it helpless as it toppled off its platform and began a long fall to find out how quickly the gravity generated by the mass effect fields would bring him face to face with the meteor's surface. With the Boom Squad disposed of, he rushed into the complex to find it awash with blood. His team's blood. By the lay of their bodies, he could picture exactly how the breach had occurred. The Blood Pack had kicked down the front door first, employing the straight forward approach that had been so bloodily successful in the past. Butler had been the first, he had assumed a relatively solid cover position in what had been an obviously sacrificial bid to give the others time to scramble but the sheer numbers had overwhelmed him, and a shotgun blast to his left side off his chest had put him down. Butler was always that stupid sort of honourable that martyrdom appealed to, though this way was nothing he deserved. Vortash had been next, it was good he was face down, a krogan obviously in the throes of a blood rage had gotten him next as he had fled and there wasn't a lot left, his limbs were scattered. Monteague and Ripper had been gunned down from behind going for the back door, their backs were peppered with submachine gun fire, cheap rounds from an old tempest. Melenis had reached the door, only to find a squad of Blue Suns waiting. The turian-made shotgun had taken most of his face off and pasted it to the ceiling, blood was still dripping onto the floor. Erash, Grundan Kul and Mierin had actually managed to get into a position, two couches had been flipped over and there was a number of popped thermal clips still on the ground. Indeed, they had made a few fight back, Garrus examined an orange blood smear on the wall, from the looks of it a krogan had been shot through the bicep twice. However, that's when Eclipse would've began rappelling down from above, dropping in a grenade to announce their arrival. His eyes lingered over the black scorch mark where it had detonated behind them, they had never seen it coming. Sensat was trickier to find, his omnitool had been cloaking him from the foot soldiers but when the Blood Pack had loosed a varren, its sense of smell had run him down where it had proceeded to kill him. At least it had been quick, the slim Salarian frame under the pressure of a varren bite had made it fracture like glass, what hadn't been shredded by teeth had certainly been perforated by bone shards. Weaver was the last. He remembered seeing the body slumped at the end of the hall, the front of his shirt soaked red, he hadn't even had his armour on. The youngest had been last, and Eclipse had used him for target practice to calibrate their mechs. Then there had been the explosion, and smoke and troops began pouring in. They had been tracking him from the moment he had raced back from the Kenzo District. This was a trap for both his team, and now him. Ten bodies, he recounted quickly, Sidonis obviously must have been killed elsewhere. He had leaped out the window, killed two Blue Suns for their vehicle and had taken off, very aware that in half an hour, the months he had dedicated to this crusade clearing Omega of the scum of the galaxy that kicked the little people had come crashing to an abysmal wreck. He looked at the gunships hot in pursuit behind him, but his mind was too consumed by the bodies of his men. Garrus took a few gulps of oxygen, his visor's readings blurred behind a tear. Garrus opened the door despite the breakneck pace of the car, pointed his pistol backwards over the roof, and emptied the clip, using the gunfire, howling engine and roaring wind to mask his anguished scream of loss._

* * *

"Don't waste your time with him" came Shepard's voice, cutting through the haunting vision and wrenching him back to the present. "Let C-Sec deal with him."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," Garrus mumbled, masking his emotion. He gripped the pistol again, he wanted to leave a hole through Sidonis' naval cavity for what he had done to their team. The thought brought a macabre smile to his mandibles. "Thanks for helping me with this Shepard."

"Have you thought this through?" Shepard asked, a touch of concern in her voice. "Do you know what you're doing?"

Garrus paused for a moment as ten bodies flashed through his mind. "No" he answered, burying it, the less he thought about it, the better. "But I'm not turning back now."

"You don't have to go through with this" Shepard told him softly, laying a gloved hand on the talon clenched around his pistol.

"Who's going to bring him to justice if I don't?" Garrus returned rhetorically. "Nobody else knows what he's done, nobody else cares." _Everyone else who knew is dead. Except one._

"This isn't you Garrus" Shepard said, not caring that Tali was a party to all this in the back seat.

"Really?" Garrus said again. "I've always hated injustice, and my problems with the red tape of Citadel-approved policing procedure, this is called a permanent solution because it works, it solves things."

"Fine", Shepard breathed, sensing that this argument wouldn't be resolved here. If she could get Sidonis talking though… "What do you need me to do?"

"I'll set up there," Garrus told her, pointing to a vantage point. "Get him to come to you and stay out of my firing line."

"Understood" she acknowledged.

Garrus touched a command and the doors popped open at his prompt. The trio dismounted from the vehicle, Garrus moving to his porch and two females heading to the forecourt of the plaza down below. "I found him" he told the girls, "one hundred metres at your one o'clock, on the bench. Wave him over to you."

Shepard spied him easily enough and with a gesture, he came over with, Shepard didn't fail to notice, a few looks over his shoulder. Tali was standing removed from Shepard, scanning the crowd for anything out of the ordinary.

"Are you one of Harkin's people?" He asked.

"Don't worry Sidonis," she assured him, "I only work with the best."

"Don't use that name!" He hissed, fear evident in his eyes. "Harkin said you'd have instructions for me?"

"You seem jumpy about your past life" Shepard said with a casual confidence, even knowing that Garrus' scope was trained on the back of her head as they spoke. "What did you do?"

"Dammit Shepard, what are you doing?" Garrus hissed in her earpiece but she ignored him.

"Betrayed a few friends a few months ago" Sidonis admitted, walking over to the railing. His shoulders sagged as he took a long exhale, "they're dead now."

"I'm sorry" Shepard replied.

"Don't be," Sidonis told her, the fear was gone from his stance now, now he was purely resignation. Shepard didn't know if he was even still talking to her as he continued. "They're dead because of me. Blue Suns got to me, threatened to kill me unless I told them where we were hiding out, then they said if I was left on Omega when they were done, I would be next. So I ran. And now they're all dead."

"Not all of them" Shepard told him, "Garrus survived."

"I heard Archangel died" Sidonis said, genuine surprise in his voice. "Did anyone else…"

"No" Shepard said, not unkindly.

Sidonis again fell into his resigned expression. "Then he's coming for me. It was my fault, I see them when I try to sleep, their voices screaming louder the more tired I get. Food has no taste. I'm not doing any living anymore, I just want this to be over."

Shepard tore herself away him for a moment. "You can't still want to go through with this" she said to Garrus through her earpiece.

"He deserves to die" Garrus growled. He lined up the shot through the scope but only found her eyes staring defiantly back.

"If he's coming for me, he'll find you as well" Sidonis said absentmindedly, interrupting her. "When he does find you, tell him I'm sorry… and that until he does catch up to me, not that I'll ever see him with that sniper, that I'm going to do everything I can to make it right." And without bothering to continue their business they had met up to do, he walked away. Shepard stood still, waiting for a shot to ring out but it never came.

Finally, she heard an exhale through her earpiece. "Let's… just go Shepard, I need to be away from this place."

Shepard felt herself smile inside. "I'm proud of you Garrus" she said, and began to walk away.

"Shepard wait, something is wrong" Tali suddenly said, her voice alert. "There's a figure, black hood, light armour, ten o'clock, making straight for Sidonis." She paused as she ran through spectrums on her suits visor. "He has his shields up."

Shepard wheeled around and looked. She could see the figure and she followed his direction toward Sidonis' back. Her attention was suddenly diverted, as she noticed a package beside the wall he was about walk past. "Sidonis!" She roared, running for him. "MOVE!" Both Sidonis and the figure looked at her, neither slowing down.

Sidonis barely had time to register confusion before the package beeped and exploded, shrouding him in a thick black smoke. Shepard coughed as she forced herself through it but as it cleared, both the turian and the figure were gone.

"Garrus," she said, pressing a hand to her ear, do you have a visual?"

"Negative" came the reply. "But I did get a glimpse of our hooded guest." Shepard waited as he scrolled back the images on his visor. "Human, male" he said quickly. "Approximately twenty to twenty five, just under six feet tall and weighing possibly one hundred and fifty pounds."

"C-Sec trained you to identify people quickly," Tali noted as she and Shepard still stood looking fruitlessly.

"He turned when you yelled at Sidonis, Shepard" Garrus said, going through the images by freeze-frame. "I got his face but only for a moment." As the images narrowed in, they revealed a blur. "Enhance" Garrus ordered his hard suit computer.

Shepard looked at the image on her omnitool but it registered no recognition. "Any hits on C-Sec's database?" She asked.

"EDI says negative" Tali replied but suddenly the sound in both their earpieces was Garrus gasping.

"Garrus, what's wrong?" Shepard asked, turning back to where he was situated.

"I know this man," Garrus told them. "Well, more boy than man."

"Who is he?" Tali asked.

"And why did he take Sidonis?" Shepard added

"His name is Jax Weaver" Garrus told them, stunned at the face in the image. "And he was one of my team members on Omega."


	2. The Consequences

"Okay Garrus" Shepard said in an authoritative voice, "I need to know everything you know about Jax Weaver and I need to know it now." Being absent of clues, the team had returned the Normandy where Shepard had been forced to ask Miranda up to give her mission report. The Cerberus operative was present in the conference room as they conversed.

"Human, twenty one years old" Garrus replied factually, "grew up on Omega, born there too, lived with his mother, no father, no siblings as far as I'm aware."

"That would explain the lack of an official birth record or identification" EDI interjected.

"Well there's no official anything on Omega" Garrus muttered.

"How well did you know him?" Shepard asked.

Garrus shifted a little uneasily, "less than I should have. He joined my squad with Sensat, my explosives expert. From what I could tell, Sensat was like a father figure to him."

"A human child growing up with a Salarian father figure?" Miranda asked, "not something you see often, Salarian longevity usually makes maintaining the right age bracket for those relationships short-lived."

"Sensat was a community leader of sorts" Garrus explained, "he saw a lot of kids come and go but Jax stuck with him. Sensat was an explosives expert, I'm pretty sure he had experience with the Special Tasks Group, he began teaching Jax what he knew and when Sensat saw what I was doing and asked to join up with me, Jax followed suit."

"How did an ex-STG operative end up on Omega?" Miranda pressed, seemingly more interested in the political ramifications than the human conflict.

"Same way I did, I suppose" Garrus mused, "just became disillusioned with the lack of results, or maybe like Mordin did and just wanted a less morally ambiguous lifestyle."

"So he survived, and now is hunting Sidonis like you" Shepard summed up. "Do you have any clue where he would've taken him?"

"In most cases, I would say that Jax would've already put a carnifex to his head, pulled the trigger and threw the body in a protein vat" Garrus muttered. "He wasn't much outside of any description of 'business-oriented', Sensat virtually spoke for both of them. They were always a package deal."

"And losing a father is a fine way to get driven off the deep end" Miranda muttered under her breath.

Garrus winced, light enough to pass it off as a wrinkle on his features but Shepard knew him better than that. "You're dismissed," Shepard told her second-in-command, "file away a report, if I have any further need of you, I know where to find you."

Miranda nodded curtly, and left.

"Thanks Shep" Garrus said after the door had closed behind her, "I've got a lot of respect for how cut and dry Miranda handles her business but right now, I don't particularly like it."

"It's fine" Shepard reassured him. "How are you holding up?"

"Probably better than I deserve to be" Garrus said quietly, pulling the visor off his head. As he discarded it on the table, Shepard saw the magnified image of Jax on the inside. "I thought Jax died that day, I saw the bullet wounds, he was covered in blood. But I didn't stop to check…" His voice trailed off as he took a pained breath. "I just ran, I can't even say I was focussed on revenge, I just ran, concerned for my own safety when I had already failed all of my men."

"You can't blame yourself" Shepard implored, trying to get through to him. It wasn't often she saw him with two unobstructed eyes and as she studied his expression struggling with the burden of guilt, she noticed the minute mismatches and wrinkles between the two.

"Right now, I just need to find him. The official story on Omega is that Archangel is dead, Jax thinks he's the last of our team, I know that feeling, it's a dark place," Garrus' eyes hardened like flint. "It's not a path I intend to let him walk alone."

"But you said it yourself, Jax probably already has executed Sidonis, he'll be a ghost by now."

"I said that would be how he would conduct himself normally. This is Sidonis we're talking about, he took away Sensat from Jax, he isn't looking for a quick resolution. Under these circumstances, I'd want to drag this out, torture Sidonis, make him feel the pain of all ten deaths over and over again."

"You let someone that imbalanced on your team?" Shepard asked, sceptical. "Were you really so desperate?"

"Like I said, he came as part of a package deal" Garrus shot back. "And he's a good kid, or at least he was. Sidonis took everything from him, friends, family, his home, Jax will think he has nothing to lose, that this is everything he has left, hence the stay in his lethality."

"So where would a youth take a prisoner he intends to execute?"

"I don't know" Garrus said, exasperated. "As a far I know, barring a few shuttle runs, he's never even been off Omega, certainly never left the system."

"Well even so, some things need to remain the same" Shepard said, pondering. "To torture someone, he'd need a large space, far away from any civilians.

"Well I suppose that rules out most places" Garrus noted. "So we're looking for somewhere commercial, abandoned most likely, but not decrepit." His eyes glittered with a memory. "I remember he asked me about why I picked the hideout I did back on Omega. We had just cleared a squad of Blue Suns out of it, I told him when a place like that sees so much activity it dies down hard, no one wants to air their dirty laundry out for long. No one ever returns to…" He trailed off.

Shepard looked at him expectantly. "Yes?"

"That clever little bastard" Garrus muttered with half a smile on his three quarters of a face. "He's back at the factory district, with Harkin arrested and all his Blue Suns protection dead, that place will be a ghost town. Plenty of heavy machinery to strip down, it's virtually a squatter's paradise."

"Not to mention being easily defensible" Shepard added.

"Let's load up" Garrus barked, a little loudly due to his over-enthused state. "One of my team needs saving."

"Sidonis is the one needing saving" EDI clarified.

"It's not Sidonis that Jax needs to be saved from" Shepard replied, knowing exactly what was going through her partner's turian mind. "Contact Thane, tell him to arm up. If this turns into a firefight, I want it defused, quickly."

"Of course Shepard" EDI replied, her holograph disappearing.

"Thanks Shep", Garrus said, picking up his visor off the desk. Shepard watched run a finger along the names branded into it, settling on Weaver, the last. "I need him alive. I lost my whole team once, maybe this is a chance for atonement."

"You don't owe penance for Sidonis' sins" Shepard told him.

"Maybe" Garrus said, puling the visor over his head and loading his pistol. "But either way, Sidonis isn't free of our little episode yet, let's get them both out of there."

Shepard flagged down a taxi and within minutes, the three squadmates were flying over the arms of Zakera Ward. Shepard couldn't help but notice the aggression with which Garrus handled the skycar, swerving between traffic and taking corners a few degrees tighter than what would constitute comfortable.

Shepard wasn't the only one noticing it either, as an image came up on Commander Bailey's desk, alerting him to a skycar engaging in dangerous driving. Bailey narrowed his eyes and he zoomed in on the N7 patch on one of the occupant's chests. Looking over his shoulder, "I don't see anything wrong with this picture", he muttered to no one in particular as he dismissed the alert.

The car touched down and Shepard's squad moved swiftly through the facility, guns at the ready. She eyed the heavy mechs nervously but they all remained inactive at their posts, waiting to be objectified with some menial task. They reached the final office and at Shepard's count, stormed in, guns raised. Sidonis saw them first but he couldn't respond, he was tied to a chair and gagged, his mandibles fastened shut. Garrus looked further behind him and saw at the end of the room the red bloodstain from where he had shot Harkin. Jax was easy to see beside him, but hard to look at. His hair was a dark brown, it had an unkempt look to it. His eyes were dark as he rounded on Shepard and his heavy pistol came up but the tension in his arm went slack when he saw her turian squadmate. "Garrus?" He asked tentatively.

"Hello Jax" Garrus said, holstering his assault rifle over his shoulder and motioning the rest of his team to do so. "It's been a while." He gestured towards Sidonis who, aside from a few bruises to the face, seemed unharmed. "Been busy I see."

Jax scoffed. "That's it? 'Been busy'? I thought you were dead, all of Omega thinks you're dead, because of him!" He finished with a yell, rounding on Sidonis.

"Has Sidonis said anything in defence?" Garrus asked.

"I don't have a defence" Sidonis called back, looking up from his bindings.

"Damn right you don't" Jax growled, jamming the gun underneath his chin.

"Wait Jax," Shepard called, "Garrus forgave Sidonis for what he did, and it was his team. Surely you can find the strength within yourself to do the same."

"I didn't forgive him" Garrus shot back, daring to openly conflict her. "I only decided I didn't need him dead anymore." He nodded at Jax, "then you swooped in and nabbed him."

"We recovered the bomb you used to obscure your escape" Thane suddenly rasped, "I've dealt with many explosives in my profession but the trigger you used was entirely alien to me, how did you do it?"

Jax shrugged, "it was easy, I keyed a proximity sensor with Sidonis' ID chip, the bomb scans anyone who comes close and as soon as the target comes into range it detonates."

"Impressive work" Thane noted.

"High praise indeed from you" Garrus remarked.

"Good work or bad work" Shepard said, "it doesn't matter, we're letting Sidonis go, and you're going back to Omega."

Jax looked at her distantly. "I'm sorry Commander, but I can't let that happen", raising the pistol to Sidonis' head, "he needs to die for what he's done."

"Nobody ever needs to die to atone" Shepard replied.

Jax chuckled at that. "he's already dead anyway. Hell, we all are. How many times to you get four dead people in one room? I'm assuming no one believes you're dead" he added, speaking to Thane.

"They only hope" Thane answered, "and be disappointed."

"We're all ghosts here Shepard" Jax called across the room, "Sidonis here is just about to become a bit more literal." He leaned in close, "this is for Sensat you son of a bitch" he whispered, "I'm going to kill you now."

"No, you won't" Garrus suddenly called out, a dark fury in his eyes. He had drawn his pistol. "I will" he said softly, and pulled the trigger. Sidonis looked up sharply and gasped as the pulled punched through his forehead and blasted out the other side, leaving a wet blue flower of blood on the wall as bits of brain and bone slowly dripped down. The force of the bullet had knocked Sidonis backwards, the light in his eyes instantly extinguished. Shredded brain matter began to trickle down his face and out the exit wound as it pooled around him. Jax stared at it with a silent horror, this was meant to be his kill, his action to avenge the people he had held most dear, now that it hadn't been him, he was only horrified by what lay in front of his eyes, the bloody and ugly end of another person he had once called a friend.

Shepard looked at Garrus sharply, who had already holstered his weapon. "I thought you said you didn't need him dead?"

"I didn't" Garrus said softly to her, "he did. Sidonis promised me he'd do everything to make his actions to make what he did right, well dying was the only action he could offer to fix this." He walk slowly over to Jax, who had his hands balled in shaking fists. "Are you okay Weaver?" He asked.

Jax nodded slowly, "I spent forever focussing on how I'd do it, I'm just realising I never really thought about how I'd see it."

Garrus patted his shoulder, "come on, you're coming with us."

Jax shook his head. "Our team is done sir, this ends it, I'll be getting ready now."

"Ready for what?" Garrus asked.

Right on cue, a red light start beeping on the dashboard of the office. "That" Jax answered. "Before you arrived, I sent a message to the Blue Suns. I told them who I was and what I'd done back on Omega, embarrassing them. They naturally can't let someone associated with Tarak's death continue living, it's a black mark on their professional reputation."

"You knew they'd send everything they had" Garrus said, looking at the security feed of troops unloading from the gunships. "How did you plan to take them all down?"

Jax was silent as he grabbed his assault rifle from the locker and checked the clip.

"He didn't" Shepard said, vocalising the thought that was in all their heads. "He's planning to take down as many possible with him."

"You can get out that way" Jax said, pointing to a door as he unfurled a belt of grenades and began to loop it over his shoulder. "I'll hold them off."

"Not a chance" Garrus told him, locking the door with his omnitool. "We're a team, we fight together."

"We don't have a lot of time to prepare" Shepard said, pulling her own assault rifle and cocking it.

"We have some time" Jax told her, "I planted a few surprises along their route."

* * *

Theta team moved swiftly through the warehouse, clearing every space, looking for this one human kid. The captain of the squad didn't have any idea why one little duct rat deserved one of the most lethal squads in the outfit to be hunting him but he wasn't be paid to question his orders. The factory had been decommissioned and the operations defunct, the shadows of disused mechanical limbs still as skeletons unnerved him slightly, the mechs all in standby mode didn't give him pause for comfort either. They passed the first heavy mech when suddenly he felt a rush of heat roar past him. He felt his head, the helmet had tightened in response to a concussive blast. He looked around him slowly to see the floor around covered in flames. He reached out to see if it was all real when he realised his hand was on fire. And his arm. Then his nerves finally caught him up with what was happening and he screamed.

* * *

Shepard watched the feed with a horrified expression, Jax stood removed, dead silent and impartial, his neutrality to the footage was almost disturbing. "You planted an incendiary explosive inside the heavy mech", Garrus analysed.

Jax nodded, "behind the fuel tank. It's tricky to not crush it when the mech compacts itself." They watched as the two dozen men lay dead or dying in the ocean of flames, their blood bubbled on the factory floor as it began to boil in the heat. Flesh was melting right off any uncovered limbs, and what was blue armour was now scorched black.

Shepard was shocked. "You employed these methods on Omega?"

"Only for desperate measures" Garrus replied, "when we couldn't take them down conventionally, we'd use traps, ambushes, anything to whittle down their numbers first."

"Remember that krogan for the Blood Pack, the walking tank?" Jax asked. "We used the same bomb except his armour was so thick, the fire couldn't burn through it."

"What happened?" Shepard asked.

"He boiled inside his suit" Jax said, "the red slush was leaking out of his breathing filters and everything, it was nasty."

"Now they're sending in the mechs" Garrus noted, drawing their attention back to the screens. "Those LOKIs will scan the next heavy mech for explosives, your trick won't work twice."

"Which is why the next mech doesn't have any explosives" Jax replied.

Sure enough, the mech was scanned and troops began to move in with a sense of safety, though not without caution as they stepped over the ashen remains of their former comrades. "You're letting them get through?" Garrus asked.

"I didn't say that," Jax replied, opening up a keyboard and typing in command prompts. "I just said it's not going to explode."

"So what did you do?" Shepard asked.

"I deliberately infected it with that virus that's going around" Jax explained, "the one that's turning off the friend/foe identifiers? Anything organic that thing sees is going to be blown away." He touched a button and the mech suddenly sprung up, the was a short burst of gunfire that rattled on the armoured plating before the mech decided to return fire. Shepard muted the screams as the mech marched onwards, the massive bullets it was throwing separating men from their limbs and punching holes six inches across through chests. Eventually the heavy weapons crews moved in and the mech was blown apart, but not before a significant death toll had been suffered.

"This is slaughter" Shepard mused.

"This is war" Jax replied, looking to Garrus. The turian just nodded neutrally, eyes on the monitor, not looking at Jax nor Shepard. His eyes betrayed no emotion, neither condemning nor condoning.

"It would appear that half of the original force has been eliminated" Thane said, "however, the firefight will still be significant. I would recommend we assume a defensive position.

Shepard nodded, but before she followed him out, she grabbed Jax by the collar and pulled him in close. "You and I will be having a serious conversation after this is all over" she warned him, "so do me a favour and don't get killed."

Jax nodded wordlessly and she turned and left.

"That order comes from me as well" Garrus told him, stepping up beside him.

Jax looked over, "you still sharp with that sniper rifle?"

"You still sharp with blowing anything and everything you see up?" Garrus asked in reply.

Jax almost laughed.

"Come on" Garrus said, stepping forwards. "We've got mercenaries to kill."

"Just like old times" Jax replied, walking with him.

The group convened around the main entrance over the cargo bridge, Shepard and Garrus took elevated positions while Thane and Jax were on the ground. "You trust him?" Shepard asked, making sure they were out of earshot.

Garrus looked at Jax testing the sights down his rifle. "I've trusted him with my life before and he never let down. Jax isn't much of a leader, he's never been independent before. He's going to be a little shaky but solid under fire. He is an asset."

"If you say so" Shepard said, "still, I'd much rather…"

She was cut off by a hissing sound as three smoke grenades were suddenly thrown forward, creating a thick cloud that obscured the factory floor in front of them. "Time to welcome the new tenants" Shepard said, popping over cover and unleashing a salvo of bullets into the smoke, satisfied when a few screams split the silence. A human was first out the other side, his shotgun pellets sprayed blue trails as he started firing at Shepard. Garrus leaned out the side of his cover, he could see the whites of his eyes down the scope. His trigger finger clenched, and the man suddenly didn't have eyes anymore as the bullet angrily punched a hole through his nasal cavity. By now three more troops had emerged, a spray of bullets hammered into Garrus and Shepard's cover, pinning them down. Jax popped up, taking three quick shots at the first one, a woman. The first two ricocheted off the side of her helmet but the third penetrated through an opening under her helmet in the throat. She fell to the ground, thrashing wildly as blood squirted out, changing her Blue Suns armour to red. Thane was next, Jax watched as he curled a fist full of biotic power before thrusting it at the turian, sending him flying backwards into the smoke. The next he eliminated with surgical precision, his shots all finding major organs. "Does something disturb you?" He asked, noticing Jax staring.

Jax shook his head. "Still can't get used to seeing biotics in action" he excused. "my mother always used to say it was unnatural."

"And a gun is not?" Thane questioned in reply, blinking with his rear eyelids.

"Fair point" Jax conceded, unholstering a grenade. There was a red ring around but as he pressed a switch, it changed to yellow. "It has multiple modes" he explained, noting Thane's curiosity. "Red is incendiary, yellow is concussive." He pressed a button and threw it over his head, feeling a bullet narrowly miss his fingers. After it exploded, all four members rose and opened fire, unleashing a tirade of man-made death. Armour cracked, shields were overwhelmed and biotic barriers were shredded as the team continued to mow down the Blue Suns. Jax's rifle stopped firing and he looked down at it with a curse, it had jammed. He pulled out his heavy pistol which made a much more snug fit in his hand and loosed the first bullet straight through an eyehole of a mercenary. "This is becoming too easy" Thane called out.

As if on cue, a pair of rockets were fired directly upwards from beyond their vantage line, blasting two girders that supported the structure. The team had to run to escape the falling debris but that wasn't the end of their problems. Descending through the hole breached by the rockets was a gunship, its engine's high pitch escalating into a roar. "Take cover!" Shepard roared as it opened fire, bullets slamming into the floor around them. Jax was forced to leap behind a container as the bullet stream chased him, almost taking off his leg.

Garrus hugged the side of a crate for all it was worth as it soaked up bullets seeking his flesh. "I'm out of ammo, did I mention that I really hate gunships?" He yelled out.

"We're too exposed out here!" Shepard yelled, risking a look at the gunship hovering above them. She saw a yellow light spawn in its rocket tubes. "Move!" She yelled as a pair were launched at them. The four ran but as the missiles exploded just behind them, Shepard was thrown clear across the floor by the blast. She landed heavily face down and did not move.

"Shepard!" Garrus yelled as the gunship homed in on her.

Jax watched the scene with wide eyes, adrenaline was surging through his system and he was fighting to keep a level head in the firefight but as he heard the whir of the gunship's mounted gun warming up, he knew what he had to do. "Fuck" he whispered as he left his cover and ran.

"Weaver!" Garrus yelled, seeing his motion but it was too late to stop him. Jax ran over to Shepard's body and grabbed her arms. The gunship opened fire and bullets whistled past Jax's ears and he quickly pulled and dragged Shepard behind an inactive mech, bullets ringing off its armour. Garrus was already waiting, "we need to get out of here!" He yelled.

Jax shook his head, "the exit's too far away, that gunship will cut us to shreds if we make a break for it and my shields are already on critical."

"Well then I hope you've got a bright idea for taking down that gunship," Garrus told him. "I can't get off a shot with the amount of lead it's throwing at us, plus the Blue Suns will already be mobilising."

Jax swore, racking his mind. He looked down at Shepard's unconscious form and an idea came to his mind. "How powerful are her shields?" He asked.

"Stronger than anyone's, she's a soldier, she leads the charge every time so her shields basically rival a tank."

"Do you still carry a talon?"

Garrus produced a knife from a holster on his hip. "I hope you're not thinking of taking a knife to a gunship fight."

"Not exactly" Jax replied with grit, turning the blade over and stabbing it into Shepard's back.

"Jax!" Garrus yelled, "what in the blazes are you doing?"

"She's fine, relax" Jax replied annoyedly. He wiggled the knife in a bit more before he felt his leverage and twisted the knife sharply, hearing the armour crack. He dug his fingers in and yanked sharply, peeling the the spinal plate off her armour. He flipped it over and yanked out a small device with multiple wires leading out of it.

"What is that?" Garrus asked, leaning protectively over Shepard with a hole in her armour, a Cerberus undershirt the only thing between the battle raging on and her skin.

"It's her armour's shield generator" Jax replied, producing a grenade and opening it up before reattaching the wires from the generator to feed into the grenade. "This should work, in theory."

"In theory? Oh that's brilliant, could you work any faster? We are in mortal danger here."

Jax cursed, his fingers were shaking from an amalgamation of adrenaline, nervousness and fear coursing through him. "I'm working as fast as I can, I'm not Sensat" he replied. Finally he closed the grenade, cycling through the modes until it became blue. "Tell me when that thing is about to fire its rockets and I might be able to take it down."

Garrus looked at him with incredulity in his eyes but nodded with all seriousness when he saw the expression in his eyes. "Got it" he affirmed, poking his sniper rifle out of cover and looking dead down the scope, his visor scanning the ship. Sure enough, the rockets locked onto Thane who had just become exposed and warmed up to fire. "Now!" He yelled.

Jax spun out of cover, pressed the button and hurled it at the gunship with all his strength. It flew towards the ship but was slightly off-target, it was going to just sail pass the front of the ship. As it did though, it detonated with a blue ripple passing through the air. The ship, unaffected fired the missiles only for them to explode after just leaving the tubes. The gunship lurched to the left, thrown off balance by the explosion's shockwave. The pilot was unable to do anything as the left wing smashed into the wall and the thrusters exploded. The ship spun erratically left with only one thruster until it hit the ground and exploded with a massive fireball spawned from the explosives and fuel still remaining. Garrus watched the ship's burning wreckage, it had fallen between them and the remaining Blue Suns squads, effectively cutting them off. Jax whistled, "lucky that worked" he remarked.

"What did you do?" Garrus asked.

"I linked the shield generator to an overload grenade" Jax told him, "the pulse essentially charged up the shield generator for a split second before it fried the circuits."

"You created a shield in front of the gunship for when it fired its rockets" Thane realised.

Jax nodded, "Exactly. The explosions did the rest."

"We need to get out of here" Garrus said, looking around as he picked up Shepard in his arms. "Where's the way out?"

Jax led him with a wave. "I'll show you, you can reach the docks quickly enough as well. I assume you have a ship?"

Garrus nodded with a chuckle. "Oh yes, and you're coming to see it. I think Shepard is going to want to talk to you personally after today's effort."


	3. Signing On

Jax was busy fidgeting at his wrists as he leaned against the back wall of the conference room. With its polished chrome surfaces, the Normandy seemed to be something out of a story book. Jax had only been on a few space runs in his life, usually to siphon a deposit of platinum from Bindur, and that had been on rusting buckets of bolts covered in grime with uncovered wires draping from the ceilings, never anything close to this. Garrus stood removed at the opposite end of the room, silently studying his old comrade. He hadn't spoken a single word since they had arrived, Shepard was still unconscious in the medical bay but Dr. Chakwas had assured him there was no cause for concern, and so he had gone back to monitor Jax, to drill him for answers. But, as Garrus looked, those questions had answered themselves in the way Jax held himself. Leaning against the back wall, one could forgiven for mistaking his stance as one of laziness, relaxing but looking at the slight bend in the knees, the muscles in his back and torso constantly tensed, like a cat ready to pounce, Jax was ready for attack even in his relaxed moments. The hand that used to be wracked by barely controlled tremors, still as stone. There were no qualms in Jax's mind about murder, or dying, he was equally prepared for both. There was a wrinkle between his eyebrows as if he was perpetually deep in thought but his were void of any conflict, empty, a mirror betraying no emotion. He was at an unnatural peace to rival an Asari Matriarch, and it worried Garrus. Shepard always impressed on him the importance of having something to fight for, to keep his edge and to give him focus, because dying would mean the loss of everything one would dear but looking at Jax, there was no such connection in those eyes, it was unsettling. Garrus silently cursed every time he had looked over Jax as nothing but Sensat's human pet, Weaver had been as much a part of their team as any of them but just because of his age and the fact that there was someone who could do his job better, Garrus had completely overlooked him. Was it possible he hadn't been a good leader at all? Only seeing people for their skills and talents and discarding any thought of a personal nature? He had certainly never saw any of his team's families, in the aftermath he could barely bring himself to send them written messages over the extranet. Jax had been more than an asset, he'd been a person, with hopes, dreams, someone with something to live for but studying him now, those glass eyes… None of it remained. There were two ways people prepared for the end, the first sort made their last phone calls, they thought of everything they had still yet to accomplish, all the places they hadn't been and things they had never said and they grieved over what had never been. The second took exactly the opposite approach, they thought of everything they had done, they traced their entire life leading up this moment, and they made peace with the end, accepted all the things in the future were now out of reach. Garrus had known plenty of both kinds, but Jax seemed to be hunting for an end. His life had all led up to a moment of death… And he had lived through it. He had run himself to empty without ever planning to fill himself back up again.

Jax finally seemed to notice the staring. "If you look at me any harder, you're going to bore holes in my brain."

Garrus didn't smile. "What happened Jax? How did you survive?"

"Jax?" He asked, "Usually it's 'Weaver' when you're making demands, when did you get so soft?"

"Just…" Garrus suddenly felt tired, like all he wanted to do was sit down and not stand up again for a very long time. "Just answer the question."

"You left" Jax said, his voice hollow, devoid of any feeling, his eyes gazed off into nothingness. "We weren't doing anything in particular when the shooting started. Half the team were dead before any of us could react. Sensat and I were the luckiest, we were near the corridor, we ran while Erash, Mierin and Grundan Kul assumed a defensive position but that was short lived before they got blown apart like sacks of meat." His teeth gritted in anger at that remark. "Sensat and I didn't even make ten steps before the mechs started to open fire on us. Sensat was cloaked but when the first bullet tagged me, we both knew I wasn't going to make it." He gave out a harsh laugh. "So Sensat kneels, right in front of them, opens his omnitool and begins hacking them, throwing off their aim, resetting their targeting matrixes, I scream at him to leave me and he just waits." Jax's voice was light, almost as if he had heard this story in a bar and was simply relaying it. "The mechs were too close to miss me completely but the lapse in their aim meant they missed most of my important organs. Then a varren comes charging round the corner and still he just waits." Jax's voice was as cold as ice but Garrus could see his fist trembling, knowing the anger was white hot against his skin. "Mechs have hit me more now, I crumble against the back wall and slide down. Left an awful fucking blood smear in my path but considering the flood just spilled in the main rooms I figured I was entitled to a bit of blood loss. I'm finished now, blood is leaking out of me and I can see him still just kneeling there, he taps a button and the mechs just turn around and head back, all the while this monster of a varren is bearing down on him. Sensat knows he's dead by now, he wasn't exactly fast so as this animal opens its jaws large enough to swallow me whole Sensat just looks at me and smiles. His ugly fucking black frog's eyes are just staring at me the way they shined like they used to. Then the varren grabs him and all I can hear is his screaming, his green blood is spraying everywhere as it shakes him, his flesh is being shredded. Then suddenly there's a snap and the screams stop, just like that, like someone simply turned a switch."

Garrus did't know how to react. "Jax…"

Jax ignored him, continuing. "So I'm lying there bleeding out, I can just feel it ooze out of me, I can't even move. Then some doctor comes, hits me with a drug and the next thing I know I'm waking up in a clinic, not dead, then came the weeks of recovery before I could even walk or hold my own spoon."

"It took me months to find Sidonis" Garrus pressed, "how did you find him so quickly after you left?"

Jax's reply was one word; "Aria."

Garrus sighed, Aria was dangerous, they had made very sure not to upset her directly, one half of Omega wanting their team dead was more than enough. They had known of each other though, they had just never had the need to provoke each other, there was more enough crime on Omega for Garrus to wade through a dozen lifetimes before he'd ever need to pursue Aria's operations. "What did she want in return?"

"A favour, the nature of such is yet to be decided."

"Dammit Jax!" Garrus swore. "Do you know how dangerous it is to be in debt like that, let alone so someone as ruthless as Aria?"

"I had no other choice" Jax shot back, "after I pieced together how it happened, killing that lying son of a bitch was all that mattered to me, I had nothing else, no one else left!"

Garrus was stunned. "Not even me?"

Jax snorted, his eyes weren't dark anymore, they blazed with fury. "You left" he spoke quietly.

He and Garrus stared very long at each other, unblinkingly. It was Garrus who broke the silence first. "Weaver" he said curtly, then left, bottling every emotion inside.

The door opened to reveal Shepard, her blonde hair a fraction too thin to hide the graze on the side of her face from the earlier battle. She looked to him as he walked out but his eyes never left the ground.

Shepard turned to Jax, "What did I miss?"

Jax shrugged nonchalantly, "We were just catching up on old times."

"You must be one hell of a passionate conversationalist" Shepard remarked, noting the hands balled into fists in Jax's pockets.

"Who doesn't love a good story?" Jax replied.

"Only if they have happy endings" Shepard returned as Miranda joined them.

Jax looked between the two, eyeing them up. "What's this about?"

"What's your plan?" Shepard asked, ignoring his question. "You planned to die fighting in that Blue Suns raid, and then you lived. Got any ideas about what you're going to do next?"

Jax shrugged. "Figured I'd go back to Omega and finish what we started."

"A one-man war on Omega's gangs?" Miranda asked skeptically, "Surely even you can appreciate the futility of that."

"You got any better ideas tits-for-brains?" Jax replied with spite.

"I do" Shepard interrupted as Miranda opened her mouth to reply with something more ferocious. "We've had a brief discussion and it's become apparent to us that you have a unique skill set, which is impressive given the talent of my crew, I recruit only the best."

"Tough standard."

"We've reviewed what we know about you, demolitions training from an STG operative, involved in numerous anti-mercenary operations on Omega," Shepard trailed off, thinking, "which is probably the most hostile environment to enact anti-merc ops in."

Jax again shrugged, seemingly unimpressed with his résumé. "It had its kicks."

"Well, that's over now, and in considering the potential holes in our team, we realised we don't have anyone specialised in demolitions and explosives, both their construction and deconstruction."

"Our lot have got using them pretty well covered, from no lack of trying" Miranda said, looking over to Shepard.

"I could use someone of your talents Jax," Shepard said, stepping forward, "Thane told me what you did, taking down that gunship the way you did. That kind of skill and focus under fire isn't something you can teach. I need people like you if we're going to have a chance at succeeding."

"It was impressive work" Miranda conceded.

"You'd have a purpose," Shepard continued, "be part of a team again, be able to use your gifts in a way that matters, to achieve some real, lasting change, the ripples from which could affect the entire galaxy. I'll be honest, when the dossiers of the specialists I'd need were compiled by my contacts, neither your name nor your skills were decided as useful to me. I think they were wrong" Shepard told him, extending a hand. "Care to prove me right?"

"Of course if that sounds too dangerous for you, you're welcome to leave" Miranda quipped, gesturing towards the door.

Jax looked at her, then down at the hand Shepard was offering. "All right, thanks" he said, leaving Shepard's hand hanging as he walked past her and strolled out. "Good luck on your mission" he called out as he left.

Shepard blinked, trying to fathom what had just happened.

"Well, that was unexpected" EDI provided.

"On the bright side, we won't have to worry about finding a room for him" Miranda said to Shepard, "the ship's filling up as it is."

"Why wouldn't he stay?" Shepard asked her second-in-command, "He knows this is clearly his best option."

"Maybe his pride won't allow him to take charity" Miranda suggested, her lip still slightly curled upwards. "Or it's something specific to this place."

"You think he doesn't like the ship?" Shepard asked skeptically.

Miranda shrugged. "Or someone on it."

Shepard could've almost hit herself for overlooking it. "Garrus. I thought after fighting together at the Factory District they'd have managed to heal old wounds."

"Clearly this is something that doesn't heal easily" Miranda noted. "I'll notify the Illusive Man of our interest, have them put some tabs on him while we're gone."

"We're not going anywhere yet" Shepard cut in. "I still want him on the team, for his sake and ours."

"He just said he didn't want to join" Miranda said, "I think that is quite conclusive."

"One more chance, I refused Cerberus' offer when they brought me back, I think Jax' disposition is similar."

"You think he's undergoing his own resurrection?"

"Of sorts. He's started a life he never thought he'd have, that kind of transition isn't always easy, there's no preparing for it."

Miranda pursed her lips. "So the question is how do you connect to someone who has no ties to anything? Sidonis was the end to anything from his past."

"Maybe not" Shepard mused. She touched the table and EDI appeared. "Do you require my assistance Sheaerd?"

"I need an encrypted transmission, avoid official Citadel comm buoys if you can" Shepard told the shackled AI.

"Who do you wish to contact?" EDI asked. Miranda leaned forward in curiosity.

Shepard took a breath. "Aria T'Loak. I need more information on Weaver if I'm going to get through to him."

"Of course Shepard," EDI obliged, "please note that taking extra measure to ensure the communications subtlety will mean it may take me a few extra minutes to connect."

"Perfect" Shepard said before turning to Miranda, "fetch Garrus back here, I want him to be here for this."

"Of course Shepard" Miranda affirmed before leaving, "I just hope you know what you're doing."

Garrus returned but again, he was withdrawn, more the rebel than the turian she knew. "You're asking Aria for help?" He asked stiffly.

"Information" Shepard corrected, "as you pointed out, the lack of any government oversight makes Omega an easy place to be invisible. I'm hoping to shed some extra light on our Mr Weaver and Aria is the most official of anything in the entire Nebula."

"And why am I here?" Garrus asked.

"Because you have more knowledge and experience about Omega and dealing with Aria than anyone else here. The most out of anyone I trust at least."

Garrus nodded but fell silent as a hologram of Aria suddenly shimmered into view above the table.

"Shepard," she purred, "miss me already?"

"Hello Aria" Shepard replied, putting on an easy smile, in stark contrast to Garrus' stone expression.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Aria asked.

"Jax Weaver" Shepard said, "he was born and raised on Omega, became part of Archangel's team, involved in some pretty high stakes stuff, I was wondering what you could tell me about him."

"And what makes you think I know anything about him?" Aria asked, a manipulative smile pulling at the tips of her mouth. She was like a cat watching a mouse run back and forth between her paws, simply waiting to snap her jaws shut.

Shepard shrugged. "You know everyone that's someone Aria, I can't believe somebody with STG-trained explosives experience would slide under your radar."

Aria drummed her chin with her fingers in mock thought. "Omega's a big place, sometimes people slip between the cracks, I can't be expected to know everyone now can I?"

"He owes you a favour" Garrus suddenly spoke, stepping forward from behind Shepard. "You know the worth of that kind of debt, you know everything about the kind of assets you have at your disposal, don't play with coy, it's the same move anyone else would make and everyone knows you aren't just anyone else."

Aria smiled at that. "You do know how to give compliments Angel, I'll give you that. But information is valuable and I'm not in the mood for charity."

"As I seem to recall, I did kill a large number of mercs who were going to come for you" Shepard reminded her.

"And I paid that debt" Aria told her.

Shepard playfully snorted. "What, with that cache of resources, that you 'didn't need or want' as you said? Giving that to me was of no consequence to you, you didn't sacrifice anything to give me that, I think I want a bit more from your end, let's be fair here."

Aria's expression grew dark as she leaned into the camera. "There's one rule on Omega Shepard, I'd advise you to not dig up good business happily concluded, bones are best left in the ground."

"I'm not on Omega" Shepard cooly replied, "otherwise we'd be having this conversation face-to-face and either way, I have no intention of fucking with you. I just want a fair trade."

"I tell you this and we're even?" Aria asked, "No more favours owed between us."

"You have my word" Shepard promised.

Aria smiled at being returned to her position of power dictating the conversation. "So you want to know about little Jax Weaver" she said softly. "What do want to know Shepard, his skills, his face, his soft spots?"

"Everything" Shepard said.

Aria rolled her eyes. "You're going to make me late for the new strippers' auditioning but fine, I'll tell you what you want to know." She smiled a ruthless smile. "And I know a lot, Omega is everything to Jax and after all, I am Omega."

* * *

Jax sat at the table, the beat of the bass pounding in his ears, the rhythm reverberating in his head. He finished his drink and held up a hand to the waitress for another. He casually observed the crowd dancing, there were a few shifting back on forth on their heels but they were more waiting for the next song if anything. A human couple didn't mind seizing the moment however, making out with a ferocity as they drove their tongues forward that Jax couldn't tell if they were kissing or trying to figure out what the other one had for dinner. The Asari waitress arrived with his drink and placed it down in front of him. "Another Batarian ale for you sir" she said, her voice somehow soft yet completely audio in the hurricane of distorted pulsing in the club.

Jax smiled gratefully as he shifted a few extra credits. "Buy one for yourself" he said with a grin, tapping his omnitool. "I can tell that Turian has been being an ass since way before I got here."

She burst out in a smile. "I might take you up on that, though isn't it human custom that the man buys the drinks for the girl they have to share them together?"

"It's been said" Jax agreed. "When do you get off?"

"Half an hour" she told him, "then maybe we can find somewhere more quiet, my apartment is great for… talking."

"Best be careful, I've been called a passionate conversationalist" Jax told her.

Her smile became more devilish. "I look forward to finding out" she told him before she left to go back to the bar.

Jax grinned and took a drink but before he had put the glass back down, a figure had taken the other seat at his table. "You know, if you were looking to kill yourself with alcohol, why not skip the ale and just drink a straight turian?" Shepard asked.

Jax rolled his eyes. "Didn't I tell you? I'm not interested in joining your boyband."

"I know" Shepard said with a carefree tone. She raised a finger and a rough cup was brought to her. Jax wrinkled his nose as the drink was poured and he could smell the strength of the liquor wafting out. Shepard noticed his discomfort, "You don't like it?" She asked.

"What is it?" Jax asked.

"Ryncol" Shepard took an easy swallow, her smile never flinching as it ran down her throat. "Not your favourite?"

Jax just stared at her. "I'm not krogan" he replied.

Shepard laughed at that. "You think I have a quad under this dress?" She asked him. "When you live as hard as us, you learn to cram the partying into tight spaces."

"I haven't been in a lot of tight spaces with people before" Jax told her.

"You don't look too shy about getting a tight space with her" Shepard said, nodding towards the Asari waitress. "You've been tipping her generously every round."

"I gave myself a generous donation courtesy of Fade's accounts. Enough to live out a drunken haze."

"Is that what you want?" Shepard asked.

"What I want is irrelevant" Jax answered, "my life just became inconsequential after Garrus put an injection of hot metal through Sidonis' brain."

"He did that for you" Shepard insisted.

"He did that for himself" Jax argued, "I was just the excuse that gave him the convenience to pull the trigger without having to admit to himself the killer that he's become."

"What makes you believe that?" Shepard asked.

"The fact that when he saw us, his first reaction was to fall back to a defensible position to murder as many mercs as he could was a fair indicator" Jax replied. "We were nothing to him, a means to an end, that end being killing as many people as he could, mercenaries on Omega being the easiest outlet to justify to himself. All his talk of nobility and taking back the streets was bullshit, all of it lies. We were just trading landlords, nothing changed."

"You lied as well, to Garrus" Shepard accused him, "back on the Normandy you said you had no one left."

"Yeah, what of it?" Jax asked.

"Well, I grew up on Earth as an orphan, running with other kids in street gangs, so I can't say I'm much of an authority" Shepard told him, "but I'd say your mother and sister are someone major to have."

Jax became deathly still. "How do you know about them?"

"Do you know how one becomes the best military operative in the galaxy?" Shepard asked rhetorically. "You get things done. I've earned my reputation, when I want to find things out, I find them."

"What do you want from me?" Jax asked, any playfulness had left his voice.

Shepard leaned forward. "Join my team, help me stop the Collectors from taking any more human colonies and in return we'll keep them safe, you can go back to them afterwards, it'll be like you never left."

"No" Jax answered quickly, "I'll have no direct interaction with my family, they…" He dropped his gaze to the floor. "They think I'm dead, and I plan on letting them believe that."

"Jax…" Shepard said, reaching for him over the table.

Jax waved her hand away. "I'm not looking for condoning or your condemnation. Here's the deal, if I join you, if I help you, your people will look out for them? Keep them safe? With both me and Sensat gone, I'm afraid from them, Omega is a rough place at the best of times, without three different mercenary outfits threatening you with protection."

"Why can't you tell them you're alive?" Shepard asked.

Jax's eyes were conflicted as he looked away. "I don't want them to see what I've become, they wouldn't recognise me anymore, it's better that they remember me as who I was."

"Fine" Shepard relented, "your family comes under my protection, we'll keep them safe but oblivious, and in return you join my crew. You'll get to see a bit more of the galaxy, you might even learn to like a few places."

"Well, considering the two space stations being the only places I've ever been and this one supposedly being the role model for the rest of the galaxy, I guess I should expect a lot more violence" Jax said with a flicker of a grin.

"Oh yes," Shepard confirmed, "they don't send spectres to fields full of daisies and dandelions."

"What's a dandelion?" Jax asked.

Shepard couldn't help but look shocked at that. "Seriously? A dandelion?"

Jax shrugged, "like I said, two space stations, that's it."

Shepard shook her head. "We'll find some time for a detour, in the meantime, I want you to gear up, we're leaving as soon as possible before Councillor Udina finds some excuse to impound the Normandy."

"So you have limitless resources, does that mean you'll purchase my supplies?" Jax asked.

"How much do you need?" Shepard asked. "I'm usually provided with it when I suit up, my arms master usually sees to my resupply but I just assumed a lot of it was one-size-fits-all, are you saying you're going a lot of explosives?"

"Oh yes" Jax replied with a grin, "a lot."

"We'll get you a tab" Shepard promised. "To our new partnership Mr Weaver" she toasted, offering her cup.

Jax clapped his ale to her ryncol and watched again in disbelief as she chugged it down without flinching. "To you Commander."

Shepard finished her drink and slapped the cup down. "Now report to the ship within the next hour" she told him, standing up.

"What about my tight space?" Jax asked, nodding at the Asari waitress who give him a wink and small wave.

Shepard laughed, "Trust me, if that's what's important to you, you'll be well accommodated, the Normandy has plenty of tight spaces. Do you how many times I've been told one of the girls in navigation has had a pregnancy scare?"

"You going to introduce me to her?" Jax asked.

"You do realise as part of my crew I'll expect you to fight and back me up occasionally right?" Shepard asked, "You know, combat specialists sometimes engage in combat, the fate of the galaxy _is_ at stake here."

"Of course" Jax replied instantly, standing up with Shepard and walking out with her. "So, who are we fighting again?"

Shepard chuckled, the ale was starting to get to him although to be fair, she wouldn't bet herself standing quite so prettily after another cup of ryncol. "Welcome aboard, Jax Weaver, welcome aboard."


	4. Why I Fight

"So let me get this straight" the employee said, looking down at the receipt. "You want one hundred metric kilograms of plastic explosive, two kilometres of det-cord, six dozen grenades, five remote detonators, a single apple and a chocolate cake?"

Jax mentally calculated the order in his mind. "That's correct" he affirmed, "oh and some of those laser tripwires? Could I get a few of those thrown in too?"

"Three multi-spectrum, high powered, laser gridline emitters" the employee said, adding into the data pad he was holding. "And this is deliverable to?"

"Normandy SR-2, frigate class warship."

"You seriously think you're going to need that much ordinance?" Shepard asked, standing with him.

"To be fair, probably not" Jax admitted, "but I figure when this is all over and I can cut loose, I can take this all with me and save a few million credits."

"Right" Shepard said, unsure whether to take Jax seriously. "And the food?"

"Well I ordered an apple for while I was waiting, you know, trying to stay healthy."

"And where does chocolate cake figure into 'staying healthy'?"

Jax shrugged, "Figured we were on a suicide mission, why the fuck not? Besides, you should never be given a blank cheque at places like this when you're hungry, I almost forgot I needed ammunition."

"So while that's going to be processed, are you going back to the ship?" Shepard asked.

Jax shrugged. "I figure we could make more trouble here, put back a few more cups of ryncol in the Dark Star Lounge?"

Shepard smiled, "a tempting offer but no, I have to help Thane first, I need to track down a crook named Mouse?"

Jax wrinkled his brow, "Mouse?"

Shepard noted recognition in his voice. "You know him?"

"Yeah" Jax answered. "Sort of, he was the contact who put me on Fade's trail, I acted like I was interested in his services, I fit the bill of someone who would want to disappear very well so he didn't suspect a thing, he must see dozens of guys like me every day."

"Where is he?" Shepard asked.

"As luck would have it, towards the Dark Star Lounge" Jax replied as they rendezvoused with Thane at the C-Sec outpost and made a direction for the stairs. "He's the scavenger outside Rodam Expeditions, probably best he doesn't see me with you."

"If I'm correct, I think familiarity is going to be unavoidable" Thane said quietly.

"Well, good luck with your mission" Jax said, "I'm going to wrap up my affairs here and report back, meet you on board when this is all over."

"All right" Shepard said, "this should only require the two of us anyway, this shouldn't result in any firefights."

"I'm sure that's what you thought when you were coming to get me" Jax remarked over his shoulder as he left.

As Jax passed over a few shops, he couldn't help but overhear the conversation between two Asari, not their words explicitly but it was obvious to him that their tones were underlined by desperation. He purchased a better shielding regeneration program at Sirta Foundation and as he was making his way back, one of them approached him. "Excuse me," she asked, "I was hoping you could help me and my friend with a certain… problem."

"And what problem would that be?" Jax asked cautiously.

"We want to get off this station and head back to Thessia but C-Sec is denying us passage. They've overruled our IDs, labelled us 'Geth Infiltration Risks'."

"And what, you want me to talk to C-Sec?" Jax asked, "I'm just a civilian here."

"Well, we need different IDs" she said, looking around nervously. "And word is, you've had contact with Fade, you know where to find him."

Jax took a step back from her, looking around. A turian met his gaze briefly before looking away. Jax swivelled his head. A human was looking at him while talking on a communicator. A batarian looked at him from beside a rapid transit console. Jax pulled the asari back in, speaking through gritted teeth. "I'm no one, I don't know anyone here and I certainly wouldn't have anything to do with anything illicit, understood?"

"O-Of course," she stammered, clearly unprepared for the escalation in aggression. "I-I didn't mean anything by it!"

"I'm sure you didn't" Jax growled. He turned to leave only to find the Batarian up in front of him. Jax went to curse at him but fell silent as he felt the barrel of a pistol poking into his stomach.

"Human, you're a member of the crew of Commander Shepard, are you not?" He asked in a low growl.

"Yeah, what's she to you?" Jax asked.

"My name is Charn" the batarian told him.

Jax waited for Charn to continue but he did not, as if expecting a reaction. "Is that name supposed to mean something to me?"

"I was part of the squad to smash an asteroid into your 'Terra Nova' in our first step to take back the Traverse from your kind" Charn told him. "Only your Commander intervened, and I allowed her to save the colony if she would kill my leader for me, only then would my safety be guaranteed."

"Let me guess, she let him live" Jax said expectantly.

Charn nodded, "and ever since then, Balak has been hunting for my blood, killing my friends, destroying my hideouts, your 'Fade' was my only option of left." He pushed the pistol further into Jax's abdomen, the proximity between their bodies aiding to conceal it. "And then he smuggles me in, only for you to have him killed. Now I'm trapped here, with no way of escape, waiting for one of Balak's hitmen to shoot me down in the street like a dog! But I will not die alone" he snarled in Jax's face.

"Surely there's a smarter way of dealing with this" Jax protested, "shooting me right here will all but guarantee you getting put down, here you're kept in, correct, but Balak is kept out."

"Are you deaf?" Charn growled. "Balak may be kept out but the batarians aren't, it will only take one to be let in and my life will be forfeit."

"It's going to take only one hitman to bring you down" Jax asked, a sneer entering his voice. "You're pathetic."

"You would taunt the one holding a gun to your stomach?" Charn asked.

"I would" Jax said in reply, not blinking as he continued his bluff, "because you inspire no fear. You ran from Shepard, you ran from Balak, all you've ever done is run, you're a coward, and the real reason you're running is because there is no place fit for cowards in the Hegemony."

"You seem very well versed in our culture" Charn said.

"I grew up on Omega" Jax countered, "some of my best friends were batarians, real batarians, not the snivelling piece of shit you are."

Charn's lips pulled back in anger.

"This is what you're reduced to doing in order to feel like a man" Jax taunted, "ambushing a kid in the Citadel with a gun to his stomach for retribution to having to finally face the consequences for his actions. Is this how you end? Because I'm ready but with all this running, I can't seem to think that you are."

Charn began to shake, Jax could the pistol trembling against his stomach. His finger left the trigger. In that moment, Jax grabbed the gun and twisted, driving a knee into Charn's thigh as the gun was wrenched out of his grip. Charn grunted as Jax slammed an elbow in to his face before Jax kicked at his knee and he fell, only to look up to Jax holding his pistol and levelling it directly at his head.

"One thing about death though" Jax told him, his grip was unmoving. "It doesn't care whether you're ready or not" and he pulled the trigger. The pistol was not of high quality, coughing a huge amount of smoke after the shot and generating an awful lot more noise than power, but it did the job as Charn fell back, a hole leaking red between his top pair of eyes. Even with the completely black appearance of their eyes, Jax was able to discern the moment the lights left them. As the blood began to pool, suddenly three C-Sec officers were surrounding him, guns raised.

"Drop the pistol son" Captain Bailey ordered.

Jax carelessly discarded the pistol onto the ground and held his hands up in an easy surrender. "I was merely defending myself officer, he attacked me."

"Yeah? And why's that?" Bailey asked as one of his subordinates collected the pistol.

Jax gestured. "Check his record, I think you'll find he's a terrorist with a very anti-human agenda, him coming at me was a hate-crime."

"Well I never liked batarians anyway" Bailey grumbled as Jax was restrained. "Who are you anyway kid?"

"I was just on my way back to my ship, I work for Shepard" Jax answered truthfully.

"Shepard" Bailey echoed, rubbing his forehead, "and here I was thinking a woman was causing me enough stress in my wife. You'll be released soon, assuming she can vouch for you."

"She will" Jax promised.

"Sir!" One of Bailey's officers spoke. The pair turned to see her standing over Charn's body. "What shall we do with him."

Bailey shrugged. "Throw him in a keeper tunnel, they'll recycle him in a protein vat soon enough."

* * *

It was less than an hour before Bailey got bored of Jax's company enough to send him back to the Normandy, albeit with two armed guards. Miranda didn't look to thrilled at the sight of his export and Jax had to smother a smile, he wasn't doing a lot to endear himself to the XO, and he couldn't tell whether the glare in her eyes at him was either with ice or flames. "So, according to the reports I've just filed, you are almost our most expensive recruit, certainly the most troublesome to bring back alive considering you almost got Shepard killed, furthermore our most inexperienced and to top it all off, you seem to have qualms at jeopardising our mission with every reckless and arrogant action and breath in your body" she thundered at him.

"Sure" Jax replied, rolling his eyes. It wasn't as of he was intentionally trying to get on Miranda's bad side, nor did he harbour any resentment towards her. It was just that he simply became bored of her when she assumed her supremacist Cerberus leader persona, he respected people, not authority figures. That was something he had liked in the old Omega team, Garrus had never pretended to be above them, he would throw himself into the same fight as any of them. Miranda simply hadn't earned any respect in his eyes and yet walked the ship with an authoritarian strut.

As Jax made to move past her, she grabbed his shoulder. "Wait."

Jax stopped and turned. "You need something?"

Miranda looked irritated. "Usually crew salutes their superiors, or at least has a bit of special ceremony for them."

"I'm not crew" Jax told her, "I'm more of a consultant."

"That's a fancy word for 'mercenary'" Miranda noted.

Jax felt his jaw tighten. "If you're looking for someone to salute you, go talk to Jacob. If there's anything you need detonated, then you can come and talk to me." He turned and began to stalk down towards the CIC.

Miranda relented with a sigh. "Jax."

He turned.

"There's a uniform waiting for you in the crew quarters" Miranda told him. "Your current clothes neglect protection in favour of obscuring your identity, a trait that's unnecessary, so I took the liberty of ordering something more defensive."

"Cerberus threads?" Jax asked.

Miranda nodded. "I had EDI analyse your measurements, you'll find it to be of a significantly upgraded design, consider them a welcome-aboard gift."

Despite his reservations towards her, Jax nodded his appreciation, even allowing a smile to crack through. "Miss Lawson," he excused before leaving for the elevator.

Finding his way to the crew quarters easily enough, he found it to be vacated for him to change. Lifting off his hooded jacket to reveal his taut, muscular form underneath. He lifted the folded shirt off the bunk, Miranda was right when she had said it was an upgrade; Jax could feel it was light yet there was a a strong resistance to it that would harden under fire, yet not restrict his movements. Discovering a battery pack at the base of the spine, Jax realised that the entire material was woven through with nanocircuitry, something would give a heavy boost to his shields with almost no feedback whatsoever. He donned the pants first, finding them to be of a light material clearly designed to be an underliner for light armour. The pants were completely black and had comfortable looseness to them whereas the shirt was tight, and bore the Cerberus logo in its classic orange on the shoulders. As he was pulling it down, the door hissed open.

"Oh" was all Kelly Chambers could manage for a start as she looked at Jax's muscled back. While the muscles were more than certainly reasons for attention, Kelly couldn't take her eyes off the pale pink circles dotted all over his back. There was no doubt that they were bullet wounds, the colour and state of them indicating they were relatively recent; they had been sustained when Jax had been shot fleeing with Sensat. Jax pulled down his shirt hurriedly and looked at her. "I didn't mean to interrupt" she quickly said.

Jax silenced her with a wave of his hand. "It's fine, you're the ship's shrink right? Chambers?"

Kelly smiled at having her reputation precede her. "I'm the ship's yeoman technically, call me Kelly." She gestured to the table, "can we take a seat?"

"Is this the moment where you're supposed to look into my head doc?" Jax asked jokingly, "tell Shepard I have psychological issues making me dangerous in the field?"

"Something like that" Kelly smiled. "Although to be fair, it's already a bit of a zoo on board. Just stay clear of Jack and you'll survive."

"Jack? What's his deal?"

"Her" Kelly corrected, "and as a psychologist, I have dozens of different words to delegate and diagnose people but Jack? Jack's just crazy."

"I'll steer clear" Jax promised, "our names are going to make people get very confused though."

"It'll be easier to read them than talk about them" Kelly agreed. "But for now, let's get back to you, tell me about yourself."

Jax shrugged, "not much to tell, I got trained to blow shit up, I ran into Shepard, she seemed to like my talents."

"Well they're certainly impressive" Kelly agreed.

Jax caught her eyes flickering over him, the bodysuit didn't give much room for modesty. "Are you sure it's just my talents you're admiring?" He pressed, taking a more casual stance leaning back.

"Let's get to more than first names before we get to first base'" Kelly told him off, teasing.

"You mean you actually need to know more than a name to sleep with someone?" Jax asked, his tone was joking but held a shade of curiosity to it, Kelly seemed to be good at teasing and something about her made him determined not to give her the upper hand.

Kelly shrugged, "sex without romance is like wood without fire, sure the ingredients are there but it's not the main attraction."

"Romance on a suicide mission," Jax noted, "that's risky business."

"You don't seem at all rattled by the fact this is considered a suicide mission" Kelly said, narrowing her eyes at him, "that's not unique amongst the other members of this crew but what is is the fact you seem to almost seem to embrace it. Some are accepting of it, some are denying of it but you, you seem the relish the opportunity throw yourself into this."

Jax dropped his eyes. "I don't really have any other purpose. Everyone else out there, they all have lives, jobs, places to return to and friends to reunite with. I suppose it means they have baggage, like Garrus making Shepard delaying the mission to hunt down Sidonis. I have no such baggage, no distractions, this is all I have to do and it's all I aim to do."

Kelly didn't smile at his answer. "It's just that at twenty one I wanted to see the galaxy, meet every person I could, human or otherwise, that thirst still isn't quenched, it's why I joined Cerberus."

"You became a receptionist" Jax said, looking around, "I became a freedom fighter."

"Is that what you see yourself as?" Kelly asked, "A freedom fighter? Freedom from what, might I ask?"

"Fear" Jax answered instantly. "Fear was the worst thing about Omega. It wasn't harassment, or extortion rackets, fear was the ultimate constraint living in a place like that. The fear that just walking down the street, someone was going to not like the look of you and gun you down for a few dozen credits. The fear that the Blue Suns or whoever else were going to make your family the example to threaten the rest of neighbourhood to stay in line. The fear that you were going to lose everything, and that there was nothing you could do about it. Our group didn't just make Omega safer, we made it _feel_ safer, people could actually spend more time outside than what was absolutely necessarily, they didn't need to look over their shoulder, or around corners before they continued walking. We did that on Omega, for what it was worth, but it failed, there was a disease on our team, it made us vulnerable and weak. Those colonists out in the Terminus, the ones still left, I know the fear that's in them, defence towers be damned, and that's what I want to help, by sending every single Collector bastard back to Hell."

"That's quite passionate of you" Kelly observed, "yet only yesterday you wanted nothing to do with this mission; what changed?"

"Your commander can be persuasive" Jax replied, acutely aware that the circle of people privy to his secrets was growing, something he was intent on stopping.

Kelly was unconvinced, "You have your own reasons for fighting this fight but you haven't answered my question. Why are you here? Everything you could do, have, anywhere in the galaxy and you choose here? Is the rest of the entire galaxy so empty to you?"

Jax felt a touch of anger flare inside his chest. "There is no one I can help better than by being here, all my affairs are in order, ending with this just seems… tidier. I've made enough messes as it is, this could be a chance to do some good, some actual lasting good, not like Omega."

Kelly pursed her lips. "There's nothing else you would give yourself to?"

"You need a spark to have a fire" Jax told her, "mine has gone out. May as well use the all the wood to beat someone to death with."

"That's not exactly what I'd call healthy" Kelly told him, "especially when you're talking to the person tasked with assessing your mental health."

"But your job isn't to make sure I'm mentally healthy" Jax told her, "your job is to ensure I'll be solid under fire, that I can be counted on to put the mission first, that I will do whatever it takes to ensure our success. So tell me," Jax said, leaning forward, "if you kept Jack on this crew and she's as crazy as you say, what would it take for me not to pass your test?"

Kelly sighed, she had been backed into a corner and he knew it. She stood up and looked at Jax, still so seemingly carefree slouched back in his chair. "I'll be writing a report for Shepard to review" she told him, "whether she chooses to take you out in the field is her call to make."

Jax shrugged. "I'll be waiting."

Kelly moved to leave but as the door opened, the urge to say one last word was too much to resist. "Jax", she said, stopping in her tracks. "There's a galaxy out there, it's never been a lonelier time to be an island."

"I'm part of this crew aren't I?" Jax challenged.

"Are you? I believe the word you used was 'consultant'" Kelly replied cooly. Their eyes met for a second, his green irises seemed to almost ripple with thought. They didn't speak, there was no words, no emotion, and then Kelly walked away.


	5. Coming Down to Earth

Jax examined his surroundings as he ate, the mess sergeant had fixed him something quick with the provisions, making enough jokes about Jax's slight build that the boy could've felt like everyone else on board ought to have the build of a Krogan commando. Everyone seemed to always have something to do, some file to examine or someone to converse with that Jax didn't quite know what to do with himself aboard the ship. A couple hours had passed since they had left the Citadel and were busy jumping through the relays, Jax had been forced to ask for nausea tablets to counteract the vertigo induced by the motion dampeners. However, from his previous conversation with Kelly, his interest had been piqued and after a small conversation, he had found his destination. Taking the stairs lightly, trying to make as little sound as possible, he found himself making his way by the red light of the systems. The letters 'SUBDECK' seemed almost ominous in the clash between the red and white light as Jax wandered into the darkness. As he rounded the corner, his eyes took in the details. A single cot, a messy array of data pads scattered all over the floor, a pistol slightly removed from… Jax focussed on the woman. Her shaved head, the canvas of tattoos layered on top of one another, all with stories behind them Jax had no doubt. Her pride in them was obvious, for she wore as little as possible to expose them. Jax found his eyes lingering on her breasts, and forcing a swallow, before she turned her head from the data pad in her hand to see him. "What the fuck are you doing here?" She roared at him, and suddenly Jax felt himself flying, the very air around him seemingly turned to stone as it pushed him backwards. _Biotics_ Jax thought as he saw a blue haze blooming from his chest. _Fuck me I should've known_ and then he crashed into the wall. He dropped to his knees from the impact but pushed himself back up quickly to find she had snatched up the pistol and was pointing it squarely at him. She looked at him with a confused expression for half a second. "And who the fuck are you?" She added.

"Hey" Jax offered meekly, offering a smile. "I'm the new guy, names Jax."

"I'm Jack" she growled, her hand didn't drop though, "and this spot's taken."

"I know" Jax replied, "I actually came here to see you."

"Why, somebody tell you about the freakshow?" She challenged, her other hand curling into a fist behind her, Jax could see the blue glow of another biotic push building.

"Though no one actually said 'freakshow', yeah" Jax admitted, taking a risk.

The tension in Jack's fist loosened a little, surprised by his approach.

"They made you out to seem like some wild hurricane of destruction" Jax told her, "I had to see for myself."

Jack almost blushed in pride at that. She lowered the pistol and strolled back to her cot. "Hurricane huh? That's a new one, might have to get that inked somewhere."

Jax grinned, indicating her tattoos. "You do them yourself?"

Jack shrugged, "some were me, others were friends," Her expression darkened for a second. "Some weren't friends. Others were filthy Batarians in back alleys because why the fuck not?"

Jax chuckled at that, "there's always something you can get from a Batarian in a back alley that you can't get anywhere else in the galaxy."

"Yeah?" Jack asked, "what would you know about it?"

Jax pointed at himself. "Omega, born and bred. Where are you from?"

Jack looked away. "Nowhere" she replied, "and everywhere. Shepard picked me up from a prison ship in space."

"Wait" Jax said, "the Purgatory? That was you?"

Jack shrugged with a hint of a smile, "I like ripping shit apart, it's what got me my ticket on this joyride into Hell." She extended a hand and a blue biotic spark floated of her finger, the blue light surrounding it becoming purple as it melded with the red light of the subdeck. "What about you, what's your hidden talent?"

"Demolitions" Jax replied, "I blow shit up."

"Nice" Jack chuckled. "All the people here are so quick and clean, headshot, headshot, headshot, take it so business-like." She leaned back and stretched her arms. "Not enough people just lie back and have a little fun with the mayhem at their fingertips."

Jax didn't smile at that, but his eyes did light. Sensat had always called him 'Firecracker' after his passion for making lights. "Mayhem comes at a cost" he told her absentmindedly, thinking back, "you can't aim an explosion."

"You lost people?" Jack asked.

Jax was powerless as the images of his whole team poured through his mind. "A few" he relented.

"You get the bastards back?" Jack asked. "Rip them apart, piece by piece, make it slow, make it hurt?"

"Me?" Jax asked, shaking his head. "No. Someone else got to them first."

"So you got a bellyful of revenge and no one to take it out on" Jack mused. Her expression hardened, "grow up, let it go, everyone's got a sob story, if you're alive then you won and they didn't, that's the end of it."

Jax was baffled. "No, it's not the end, I should've been…"

Jack held up a hand to silence him. "I'm bored of this, you can get the fuck out now."

Jax felt a mix of confusion and anger. "What the hell" he muttered.

"When they told you about me" Jack called after him with a laugh. "They would've mentioned that I'm psychotic right? Well they forgot to add I'm a psychotic bitch."

Jax didn't bother turning as he walked away. Just as he wanted to turn and yell all manner of obscenities at Jack for toying with him, a blip in his ear stopped him. "We're arriving planet-side" Shepard said in his earpiece, broadcasting to the whole crew. "Jacob, Jax, I want you with me. Arm up and meet me at the shuttle."

Jax hailed the elevator and when it arrived, bore a dark skinned man with a deep brooding expression. "I take it you're Jax" he said, extending a hand. "We haven't been formally introduced, I'm Lieutenant Jacob Taylor."

"I'm Jax, don't really have a rank" the youth said, accepting the gesture.

"Or a last name" Jacob noted.

"I didn't ask for your family tree, don't ask for mine" Jax retorted.

Jacob shrugged, "you'll be getting my family tree anyway seeing as Shepard wants you on this mission. We're looking for my father. Do you need to go up to the armoury at all?"

Jax shook his head. "I work with demolitions, everything I need just got delivered to the ship just got delivered, should still be in the cargo bay. As for a gun," he trailed off, drawing his heavy pistol and turning it over, examining it. "This will suit me fine." The elevator doors closed and the elevator silently took them down to the shuttle bay. Jax and Jacob split off as Jax made his way to where a stack of crates labelled _EXPLOSIVES_ were stacked. Jax pried one open and surveyed the contents inside with a grin, with everything he had he'd be able to char a battlefield three times over. Noticing a locker with his name on it slightly removed, Jax approached the panel and it slid open at the touch of his hand. Suspended inside was armour, specifically a chest plate and greaves. Jax pulled it on, noticing the many cavities and ties for storing grenades and the like on his person. Jax gave himself a small satisfied grin as he examined his reflection in the polished plates of the wall, he looked truly magnificent.

* * *

Shepard had just retrieved her assault rifle from the armoury and was making her way through the CIC towards the elevator when she was hailed.

"Commander!" Kelly's voice was soft but yet seemed to carry across the entire room, it was the talent of a mediator Shepard assumed.

The commander sighed, "can this wait, Kelly? I'm about to drop planetside for a mission."

"I would read this first if I were you" Kelly advised, swiping a document off her computer.

Shepard activated her omnitool and opened the report Kelly had transferred to her. "Jax's psych report" she mused, skimming through the finer points. Pausing on a section, she looked up at her yeoman. "This is a bit over the top isn't it?"

"It's entirely my professional opinion" Kelly told her straightforwardly.

"Of course but this? I mean you've highlighted depression, loneliness, severe post traumatic stress disorder, for Jax? He's had a rough past of course but seriously, he can't finish a conversation without a quip."

"Mental illness can take many forms" Kelly told her humourlessly, "it isn't all the quiet broodiness the vids make it out to be. I believe Jax is acting out of a heightened sense of protection of his perceived psyche, he's trying to cover himself up, but everything that's happened to him, it eats at him, like an emptiness slowly becoming larger as more of himself crumbles away. For all his smiles, I believe Jax is fixated on the point his team died, he uses it as almost a motivation to justify his actions to himself, smiling isn't synonymous with happiness."

Shepard chewed her bottom lip. "Jax is a solider, he's been through some tough times but so have I, I died and I haven't come out any worse for wear."

"Yes but I think it goes without saying that you are a special case Shepard."

Shepard reread over Kelly's report again, slower. "This is all quite personal Kelly, do you care for him?"

"I don't-" Kelly started aggressively before she composed herself. "I care for everyone on this crew Commander. My relationship with Mister Weaver is purely the relationship being a yeoman necessitates."

"So tell me Kelly," Shepard said, closing the report, "in your _professional_ opinion, is Jax fit to fight? Because if he isn't, then he isn't fit to be a member of this crew and we'll drop him at the nearest civilised planet and let him do what he wants from there."

Kelly met the challenge of Shepard's stare for a few moments before cracking. "Just keep an eye on him, Shepard, please. He's the youngest member of this crew and his mental fortitude isn't like ours, he isn't bred for this kind of mission, he could be in denial over it."

"I'll keep an eye on him" Shepard promised, "the field will prove whether he's ready or not."

* * *

Filling the suit's ties with explosives, Jax didn't notice as Shepard entered the room, Jacob however, approached her immediately. "Shepard, we have no idea what we're going to find down there, whether my father is even alive. Why are you bringing along a kid for firing blind into uncharted territory, we could need some serious back up on this mission."

Shepard gave him a sympathetic, but nevertheless authoritative stare. "Whatever is down there, hasn't been off the planet for nearly ten years Jacob, with how fast technology has progressed in the two I was dead, resistance will be minimal at best in relation to what we're packing. The risk is smaller with this mission than with anyone else's."

Jacob looked down, acknowledging the truth in her words.

"Plus I need to give Jax a trial run, see what he can do. The only other combat situation I was involved in with him, I was unconscious."

Jacob nodded, then turned on his heel and boarded the shuttle.

"Jax! Are you going to spend all day checking yourself out or are you going to get your ass on this shuttle?" Shepard called out. Jax turned and crossed the cargo bay in half a dozen long bounds, taking a seat opposite Jacob. Shepard pressed a hand to her helmet. "Take us out" she ordered the pilot and sat down beside Jacob as the shuttle lifted off, rocketing into space towards the unknown. Jax couldn't sit still on the flight, even through the black tint of the windows, the aura of the planet still shone through into the cabin, Jax couldn't take his eyes off it.

"You all right Jax?" Shepard asked, "you seem anxious."

Jax shook his head. "Just a bit tense" he brushed off, "I'll be fine when we touch down. Thank you, for the armour by the way."

"We couldn't let you just run round in a shirt" Jacob quipped, "people try and kill us on a regular basis. It looks good on you." He nodded and Jax looked down, seeing it sported the same golden Cerberus logo as his own.

"Yeah, it's a real natural fit" he excused his temporary silence, made uncomfortable by the fact Shepard seemed to be drilling him with her eyes, and he didn't know why.

The shuttle ride only took seven minutes, but to Jax it took forever. The first thing he noticed, was the gravity, it was slightly heavier to what he was used to back on Omega, and it had been lighter still in the Citadel wards. His arms seemed to be minutely heavier, his boots seemed to be on the ground a split second longer that usual before they obeyed his command and lifted. Then the doors opened.

Jax was speechless as sunlight poured in a crack, and then filled the entire compartment as the doors opened fully. It was incredible, thick trees erupted from the ground, each twisted gnarly root spawning a thousand different leaves that rippled ever so slightly in the breeze that danced through the grass. As Jax's eyes tracked over the scenery, they fell upon another wonder. Water rippled and rolled in a seemingly endless motion over an internal surface that stretched to the horizon, wind caught the tips of each wave and lifted the spray into the air, the sun leapt from a hundred different glimpses on the surface, by the time Jax looked at it directly it was already gone, shining at him from another point. Jax was stunned, then he remembered to take a breath, which was a sensation itself. After all his years on space stations, on ships, the air of this world seemed to be almost flavoured. Jax could smell the salt of the waves, the pollen in the breeze, the ripeness of the fruit, it swirled within him and exited with a natural easiness, the void being filled in by another breath rolling in like a trailing wave. The sun glittered, it hurt to look at for more than a second but the way it heated the very air around him, it was surreal, a state of being technology could never hope to imitate. Jax stood and stepped off the shuttle, feeling the earth give ever so slightly under his feet, shifting and reforming to solidify and support him. Jax kneeled, brushing his fingers over the dirt, digging them deep and feeling the tips of his fingers encircled in moist soil, this whole planet was made of sensations he had never even dreamed existed. He had been so satisfied, so complacent with living on Omega; he had never stopped to dream of the literal galaxy of opportunity at his fingertips. Now it was all in within his reach…

Shepard stopped as she saw Jax kneeling, the gun laid down as he drunk in all the planet had to offer each of his senses. _It's his first time planetside_ she remembered, he had never seen anything like this before. She stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder, it was his luck that his first planet had been uncharted, one of the most lush left in the galaxy. "Are you okay?" She asked him.

He stood, the incredulity in his voice was palpable. His expression one of unending awe. "It's just so… green" he summed up lamely, unable to find the words. He looked over across the ocean. "I didn't know there was this much water in the entire galaxy" he whispered.

"Yeah it's beautiful, how about we be tourists later?" Jacob barked impatiently. "We have my father to find."

"Of course" Jax said, shaking his head and snatching his pistol off the ground.

The team proceeded down the coast quickly, finding the wreck of the Gernsback, the ship that had bought the alliance crew they were hunting after. It was an ugly metal blight on the environment but at the same time, Jax marvelled at how nature was taking it back over. Birds nests were littered all through every nook where the plating had come off. Moss clawed its way up out of the sea and was healing it under a deep green blanket. Vines extended to wrap around beams and insects crawled out of burrows deep in between the cracks. Jax swept the interior of the ship under Shepard's order while she and Jacob questioned the VI outside.

"Nothing but a few corrupted crew logs" he reported.

"Anything of note?" Shepard asked.

"It looks like the captain was replaced, although the crew were dubious about him. The rest of it is… weird. Like they started losing their minds, their morals, it doesn't make a lot of sense."

"The food is toxic, retards brain function" Shepard told him. "I know it's pretty but leave the fruit on the trees unless you want to become a vegetable yourself."

"Roger that."

They continued on, pushing through until a they reached a survivor. She was a woman, she reminded Jax of a lost animal, one that had lost its pack and with them, all sense of direction, just from the way she stood and the vacant expression in her eyes. She hailed them over and Shepard began to quiz her for answers. Jax zoned out as they conversed, just listening to the rumble of the waves, the intrinsic rhythm of nature seemed to be a hum and a roar, a constant battle in a deafening silence, all at once. Suddenly he heard Jacob yell "Get down!" and tackled him to the ground as a hail of gunfire flew overhead. "Get your head in the game!" Jacob yelled at him before peering over cover and loosing two shots with his Eviscerator. Jax looked to see Shepard, having pulled the woman to safety, loose a spread of bullets to halt the host of men coming at them. By the amount of wild shots they loosing without a valid target, Jax could tell diplomacy wasn't on the cards. Still on his chest, Jax reached around the corner of cover and fired, blowing clean through a man's ankle. _No shields, unfortunate for them_ Jax though as the man fell screaming clutching at his bloody stump. Shepard noticed and finished him with two shots to the chest. Jax weighed up a concussion grenade in his hand before tossing it over. He waited for the explosion, the gel earplugs barely registering the noise. He took in a breath, feeling the sea salt mix in with the scent of popped thermal clips and blood. He opened his eyes and his mind sharpened in a moment of perfect clarity. He rose, his gun arm extending. The first shot took a man through the heart, Jax took two steps forward, dancing towards the next point of cover, releasing two more shots, the first chipping the top of a half buried pipe that the men were using for makeshift cover and the second taking the top exposed half of a man's head, the slug carving a bloody gouge on its path. Jacob pulled the last man to him with his biotics and shredded the man's insides with a messy gut shot.

"They weren't mentally unbalanced" Shepard mused.

"They were batshit mad" Jax finished. "A head-on assault with inferior weapons, no armour or shields, they basically threw themselves at us in a suicide attempt."

"It doesn't matter" Jacob said, surprising both Shepard and Jax by breaking his normally neutral diction with a much more impatient and aggressive tone, "they're dead, I need answers."

"Looks like we might get them here" Shepard noted. Jax looked ahead, they were nearing some sort of settlement, a weird idol comprised of scrap salvaged from the ship and held together by wire and messy weld marks towered over everything. "See what you find" Shepard ordered Jax as a group of women approached them, "we'll talk to the civilians, see what's going on."

Jax nodded and proceeded inwards, holstering his pistol. He brushed his forehead and noticed amazingly, there was sweat on his face. Omega had always been temperature regulated, and held a few degrees colder than what was comfortable for humans, held at degree intended more for Batarians and Vorcha but the sun beating down on his back, the excitement of feeling soil under his boots, every angle revealed some new secret he had never dreamed existed. A woman approached him, shattering his illusions of solitary peacefulness.

"You" she said, in a voice with a pitch a few notes too high. "You are man." Her voice sounded like it was amazed, as if she was literally vocalising her realisations in her head.

Jax nodded, eyeing her cautiously. "I am."

She took his hand. "Come" she said, leading him away. Jax trailed behind her as she pulled him into a tent. "I am not happy" she told him, the usually stale grey canvas of the tent was lit up in the sun, filling the cramped space with a light glow, the particles in the air almost glowing as they hung motionlessly. "I want to be rewarded" she told him, shrugging off one of her shoulder straps. "I will please you."

Jax took a surprised step back as she pulled the top of her garb down, letting her large breasts spill out. "I don't want… pleasing" he excused himself, even as he caught himself staring. He was about to tell her to redress herself when he noticed something. She stood so lamely, her arms hanging limply by her sides, presenting herself. There was no shyness or reluctance but similarly, there was no eagerness, lust or flirtatiousness, just acceptance. Her body language was all wrong. Jax stepped closer in to examine her body. Her pale skin betrayed a number of red scratches, and red stretch marks. Jax could almost have written them off as just general injuries, from life lived so manually and with the crazy groups of men running around but seeing the injuries, they were centred on her breasts, her throat and her hips, running down beneath to what her clothing still obscured. They were clearly of a sexually sadistic nature, she had been abused as an object. Given the years she and the rest of crew had been stranded here, perhaps it was unsurprising that some had given in to more base impulses but Jax remembered as they approached the settlement, _every_ woman had been standing with that docile meekness, they had all been systematically used, until their resistance had been totally broken down. This went far further than base impulse, this was premeditated abuse. "Put your clothes back on" Jax told the woman, stepping outside.

Shepard and Jacob approached him, "anything in there?"

Jax's face was set in a grimace. "I think something is very wrong here, we need to find whoever's running this place."

"The women were assigned to officers like cattle" Shepard told him, "virtually pets for every nature of slavery."

"Let me guess" Jax told her, "including sexual?"

Shepard nodded. "Our answers for all our questions rest with Jacob's father, let's move." Jacob's only reply of affirmation was cocking his shotgun.

They moved quickly, the outdated mechs in their proved to be of little resistance, what little didn't have their limbs systematically blown off by Shepard were either completely shredded by Jacob's shotgun or blown to smithereens by Jax. Jax, having gotten over the revelation of the new world, quickly developed a focus, obeying Shepard's command to the letter and moving in sync with compliment the attacks of his squadmates. There were no more instances of him being distracted as they quickly culled through all opposition with a mix of bullets, bombs and biotics.

They quickly reached the last stage of opposition, gauging the solidity of the defences ahead, the captain would have hidden behind that as his last line of defence. The first hunter's head exploded like a melon as Shepard put a bullet through it, blood coating the crate in front of him. The next turned only to find a grenade sitting at his feet, he died without a scream as the exploding blossom of fire enveloped and swallowed him, his silhouette quickly disappearing. However, the easiness of how they disposed of their enemies soon disappeared, as a heavy rhythm of footsteps approached them.

"LOKI mech!" Shepard warned with a yell, diving for cover as a rocket flew past. A hail of bullet hammered her cover as enormous rounds were flung from its arm. "If anyone has ideas for taking it out, I'm all ears!" She called.

"Could I possibly use a bomb to blow out the earth from under it?" Jax asked, thinking wildly.

"You honestly think you could do that with the mech bearing down on you?" Jacob asked sarcastically. "You honestly have no idea how resilient nature is do you?"

"I know one thing" Jax replied, looking at the mech. It was draped in shadow from a tree that leant out from a hill, clawing to drink in as much sunlight as possible. An idea came to his mind. "It burns." He turned to Shepard. "Could you keep it distracted?"

"For how long?" Shepard asked, "my shields won't last more than a few seconds under heavy fire."

"That's all I need" Jax promised, "I just need to get in behind it."

Shepard instantly stood, her shield rippling under fire as she replied in kind, doing sparse damage to its intense shielding coating its heavy armour plating but doing an excellent of job of keeping its attention.

Jax ran, skirting around the outside of the fire zone, crossing it with a sprint as he reached the tree. Reaching for the reel of det-cord on his belt, he pulled out a length and quickly began wrapping it around the base of the trunk of the tree.

"Jax, I hate to constantly be rushing you on whatever spectacular feat you're about to accomplish but a crate can only take so many bullets" Shepard said drily in his ear.

"Well I'm…" Jax started but stopped as the LOKI mech turned around to face him. He saw the mech lean back, bracing itself against the recoil of the missile it was about to fire. Jax looked down at the det-crod he had wrapped around the tree he was behind. "Shit" he whispered as it fired. Jax had time to take two running steps before the missile hit the tree and the det-cord exploded, throwing him through the air and the world went black.

Jax woke up to see Shepard holding him by the shoulders, an omintool showing her the armours live feed into his biological signs. Jax scrunched his eyes, every organ in his body felt as if it had been lurched and were slowly crawling their way through his body back into place. "Say something Jax" Shepard told him.

Jax twisted his back, trying to find a measure of comfort. "Did…" He started, "did I get the mech?"

Shepard turned around, Jax saw past her the mech was squashed, crushed under a flaming tree. The root of it was messy mixture of splinters and spiked wood.

"Yeah" Shepard said, "I think you got it. Can you walk?"

Jax nodded, slowly getting back to his feet. "I'm fine, where's Jacob?"

"He's gone on ahead, I thought it might be best if he initially spoke to his father alone."

Jax nodded, "let's go join him."

The pair moved up to where Jacob was standing with a man dressed in old tattered clothes. They were more of a refugee origin, similar to the women back at the settlement, though he supposed ten years without a decontaminator could probably make their original Alliance uniforms get very ratty. Jax stopped early, staying fairly removed from Jacob. Shepard moved up to join the conversation but that was her right as commander, Jax knew he wasn't invited to be a part of this. A few hunters ambled into the captain's complex, Jax drew his pistol; not to aim or fire, but just a warning. They recognised the weapon and stopped, but they did not leave either, they simply stood staring at Jacob's father, the kind of stare that harboured retribution from ten years of abuse, cruelty and neglect.

"What do you think the hunters will do to him if we left him here?" Shepard called out to him.

Jax looked at her, then looked again into the faces of the hunters. "They'll kill him" he replied. "Eventually."

Jacob said something Jax couldn't quite hear, and then turned around and left. Shepard motioned at Jax and he stood aside, letting the hunters pass. They were almost like zombies, they didn't run, only shuffled, but it was with furious intent. Jacob's father saw it too. "Jacob!" He called.

Jacob turned. "You were a better man dead. As far as I'm concerned you still are."

The hunters were closer.

"Jacob!" His father yelled.

Jacob didn't turn. The hunters were closer.

One tried to strike him but Jacob's father ducked under the swipe and ran at his son. "JACOB!"

Jacob, in one swift movement, turned, drew his gun, aimed, and fired. The shot punched through his father's head, the force of it actually lifting him off the ground for a brief second before he crashed back down in a limp mess, blood erupting from his forehead in periodic squirts. "Farewell" Jacob said, turning and walking away nonchalantly as if nothing had happened at all. "Dad."


	6. Recalibrating

A/N: Hey guys, firstly yes I know this has been forever and you'd probably all forgotten about it, pretty sure it's like been nearly a year since my last chapter. I got caught up in some shit and so I wrote a bit more of a personal project, 100,000 words takes some time. That finished now, I've decided I won't write anything else until this is finished, I hate leaving stuff undone forever and I hate getting into a story on here that doesn't give me some damn closure so I'm fully on this, got a lot of plans so as long as I strike a good balance between this and work, I expect to be making some good progress. I've already written a second chapter so expect that up in a few days after editing and lastly a huge thank you to any and all who kept the faith. It's been awesome to see messages and more follows no matter how long it's been so thank you

~Small Mistake

Jax leaned against the wall of the shower, focussing solely on his breathing as he let the water run over his back. The armour was tight, it offered exceptional protection but didn't offer much in letting his skin breathe, Jax had discovered a slick layer of sweat upon peeling it off. HIs eyes lingered over the bullet scars scattered over his chest and his expression darkened. He was lucky he had been found by so skilled a doctor, anyone else and he would've been surely dead. A drop of red tinged the water as it was swallowed greedily by the drain. Jax, his train of thought broken, frowned and touched his ear. He looked at his finger, seeing the tip similarly reddened. It seemed the shockwave explosion that dropped the tree on the YMIR mech he had created had down some damage below the surface.

"I'd get that checked if I were you" a voice behind him told him.

Jax turned around to see Jacob walking in, shirtless and a towel over his shoulder. He stepped out and grabbed his own towel, wrapping it around his waist to cover his nakedness. Jacob stepped out of his boots and stripped nonchalantly, his military discipline clearly overriding any instinct to be shy. "Showering now?" Jax asked confusedly. They had gotten back from their mission nearly an hour ago.

"Had to work out" Jacob told him, "clear my head."

"You okay?" Jax asked. "What happened down there… was pretty messed up."

"Yeah" Jacob sighed, facing the wall, "that's putting it lightly. I idolised my father growing up. I didn't really like him, hell I'm not sure whether I even loved him, but I always wanted to be just like him. Rising through the ranks, getting the new ships, going to the new places. Never changed, even after he went missing. The last time we talked was three years, four months and eighteen days before he went missing, just to put on a happy face for Mom. Then we find him and it turns out everything I thought about him was a lie."

Jax had the sense Jacob wasn't really talking to him anymore but still replied. "At least you had one, even if he cared in his own way, counts for more than you might think."

Jacob snorted, still looking at the wall. "Yeah, I guess you're right. For better or worse he made me into the man I am today. Nothing changes that, not even him."

Jax remembered back to his days on Omega. Garrus' team hadn't been perfect; they had lost men occasionally. The first time Jax had seen death was a turian who had been shot through the throat. He had thrashed around wildly, eyes full of fear as blood had pumped out of him and while the adrenaline of battle had been enough to keep Jax on task, after the shooting had subsided there was nothing to stop his tears from flowing. Sensat had been the one to comfort him, to hold him. It had been enough. Jax had never met his biological father and had long given up on ever finding him, but Sensat had been everything to him. Jax couldn't imagine ever putting a gun to his head. "It's good to own who you are" Jax said absentmindedly as he left back for the crew quarters. He redressed but grimaced as a splotch of red dripped onto his towel. Remembering Shepard studying him on the flight, Jax decided it would be best not to have any more issues against his name just yet. Swallowing his pride, Jax made his way down to the med bay. The door opened with a hiss and inside sat Doctor Chakwas.

"Ah Mister Weaver, come on in."

"Doc" Jax nodded.

"Do you require anything?" She asked.

Jax angled his head at her. "Bleeding from my ear. Anything you can do?"

Chakwas almost sprung out of her chair, Jax assumed she must have been glad to do something other than file reports. "Let's get a look at you" she said, cycling through the modes on her omnitool.

Jax stared at it with a small grin. "Have to say, your physicals are less invasive than I imagined they would've been."

"Much to my displeasure" Chakwas replied, "sometimes I feel like all this technology is overtaking the medical mind these days."

"So what keeps you from quitting?" Jax asked.

"No omnitool could ever force Joker to take his medication" she smiled, "and seeing my friends well is its own reward, even if a VI is the one telling me so."

"You don't think there's an inherent risk from making friends in a position like this?"

"As a doctor?" Chakwas asked.

"As an attendee of suicide missions" Jax clarified.

Chakwas' mouth opened slightly but she failed to give an immediate response. "I admit, the risk does seem obvious, just to make friends only to see them torn away, but I would give anything for those few moments of true friendship."

Jax was silent.

"And you have one in me at the very least" she told him, reading his thoughts. "And another in Shepard." Her omnitool blipped, indicating it had completed its scan. "Your eardrum received a mild perforation from a shockwave, perhaps the explosion you triggered partially dislodged your earplug, the bleeding is just the rupture draining out, nothing to be too worried about."

"Anything to be done?" Jax asked.

"This is one of the few cases technology doesn't have the edge over biology just yet" Chakwas told him, "your hearing is fine, the perforation will heal naturally on its own. I can give you some painkillers in the meantime and I might suggest wearing some form of more secure headwear if Shepard takes you out in the field in future."

"If?" Jax queried.

"I believe there's more to your psych reports Shepard wants to investigate further" Chakwas said absent-mindedly. "But you're finished with me."

"Cheers" Jax thanked her. "Also I have to ask, are you like the mum of this place?"

Chakwas actively burst out laughing at that. "Oh dear, maybe the others have their own views but I don't think so. Truth be told I've stayed so long aboard a vessel not for the lack of family, but for the want of one."

"What do you mean?" Jax asked.

Chakwas sighed as she discarded a datapad carelessly, sinking back into her chair. "I'm the last of my family" she explained. "It's not something I particularly fret too much about, the name extinguishing, there's not much of a legacy to be carried in it. However, I do think about it the more time passes, what will be remembered of not just me, but the family. Being the last of one's family at my age has a certain sense of finality to it."

"You feel the pressure to leave the name in a good light solely because you haven't carried it on" Jax said.

Chakwas nodded. "Feminism has come a long way in two hundred years, can you believe we weren't even allowed to vote once upon a time? However even now, I still feel like by sticking to doing this for so long, never walking away, never finding someone and settling down to carry it on, that I've somehow let them down."

"You feel comfortable making friends here, just being on the suicide mission because there's no bigger a statement to go out making."

Chakwas nodded. "It's my validation for the choices I've made. The others, out there and in the crew quarters, I hear them talking about their children or how they plan to spend their next furlough. There's a good chance we'll all be dead before we ever get to spend that time with those we love. Everything changes so rapidly in the military life, as a doctor it's often a constant swarm of injured bodies and all your job is meant to do is to patch them up so they can go get filled with more holes again. Joker is one of the only people who truly needs me for not just saving his life, but prolonging it for something more. I think I need that."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Jax asked.

"Because I remember a time where I wanted to leave the Alliance" Chakwas said, still in her chair. "To hang it all up, find something that was less engaging for the simple reason of not having to commit to the pain every time a name gets added to the memorial plate abroad an Alliance ship. You have that same look about you. You have a reason to be here, but that's not the same as having a reason to stay." Chakwas paused and then suddenly laughed at herself. "Listen to me babble on. Hell, maybe I am the mother of this place after all."

"Matriarchal figures have a tendency to exemplify disciplinary standards and are generally less likely to engage in excessive drinking to the point of unconsciousness" EDI noted.

"My yearly exception to formality" Chakwas explained to Jax's arched eyebrow. "Now consider yourself discharged."

"Thanks again Doc" Jax said, waving a mock salute. "For the help, and the chat. Am I ready for combat again?"

"Physically, yes" Dr Chakwas said, turning back to her computer. "Although it says you've been pulled from the mission roster pending a psychological re-evaluation."

"Again?" Jax asked exasperatedly. He remembered the way Shepherd had been looking at him. "What does Shepard have to doubt me with? I did brilliantly down there, even destroyed the YMIR mech."

"I'm sure you did" Chakwas said. "But this wasn't logged by Shepard. Yeoman Chambers requested the follow-up session."

"Kelly?" Jax asked confusedly. "What reason does she have against me?"

Chakwas shrugged. "I don't know but you'll need to see her if you want to get into any more planetside shenanigans again."

Jax sighed. _Just my luck._ "Well I guess I better go see the good shrink" he muttered, exiting the med bay.

* * *

"Now, I know what you're thinking" Garrus said, walking back and forth, his eye hard behind the visor. "I've seen a million like you before, sitting right where you are now and I'll tell you something else; I'll see a million more. But that's not relevant to you is it?" He pulled out his pistol and looked down the sight, checking its constant perfection. "No. Because in all the excitement, I'm not sure how bullets I've got left in thing and for you, I only need one to end this." He resisted the urge to check the thermal clip, aiming the pistol with deadly stillness. "And if there is one, just one left, then bits of you are going to be all over this floor. If not, well you get to be part of a wild night in a bar, thinking about how lucky you were to survive me. So that's what it all comes down to, doesn't it? Luck. So, with this gun trained on you right now, I have just one last question for you, punk." He cocked the gun. "Do you feel lucky?"

The bottle of purple plastic sat motionless at the end of the room.

Garrus pulled the trigger and the bottle exploded into pieces, the liquor within showering all over the floor.

"I guess that answers that question" Garrus muttered as the door hissed open behind him. "Shepard!" He exclaimed, quickly holstering the pistol. He gestured awkwardly to the bottles sitting on the end of the main battery. "I was just having a bit of target practice" he stammered.

Shepard couldn't smother her smile. "Sounds like that wasn't all you were practicing."

Garrus' head dropped, he couldn't bear the embarrassment of that smile. He didn't know if turians were biologically capable of blushing but he knew in this moment of embarrassment, seeing that woman with that smile, he would find out. "You uh, heard that huh?"

"Wish I could tell you I didn't" Shepard chuckled again. "No I don't, that was amazing. Since when did you watch Dirty Harry?"

"Well even calibrations can become tedious after a while" Garrus said. "A vid every now and then didn't seem like too bad a way to pass the time. Jax mentioned it to me, well I believe his words were 'you're like a turian Dirty Harry, Scorpio would've shit himself going up against you." He went down to the end and started picking up the larger pieces of the bottles. "I'll be honest, I only watched bits of it here and there and I have no idea why a human astrological sign would defecate itself in my presence but Dirty Harry had one really cool line, I wished I could've used it back in my C-Sec days."

"You and he certainly go back a while" Shepard noted. "How early on did he and Sensat join your team?"

"Not too early on" Garrus said, "The neighbourhood Sensat looked out for wasn't too far from where you had to clear out troops on the way to Mordin's clinic, Jax apparently lived on the other side of the region barrier, near Afterlife."

"Wasn't that slightly encroaching on Aria's territory?" Shepard asked.

Garrus shook his head. "All of Omega is Aria's territory, she just doesn't bother to police it. Anyone took a shot at her troops anywhere on the station and she'd destroy them and their entire outfit. We cut down squads of merc troops all over her territory, but never her men. It was a mutual understanding, we left her alone and she let us continue our crusade. People still knew Aria was in charge but we let them live without fear. Once Sensat and Jax joined on, we started to really hit our stride. We had Erash hacking any system ever designed, those two throwing grenades in the door and from there, we all contributed." His fists tightened.

"You seem stressed," Shepard noted, "more so than usual."

"I'm fine" Garrus replied, "just lacking an outlet to vent."

"How do turians usually vent?" Shepard asked.

"With violence mostly" Garrus told her, "turian military has tighter operational discipline than your Alliance but fewer personal restrictions. Our commanders run us tight and know we need let off steam. Turian ships have training rooms for exercise, training sims, even full combat sparring, whatever lets people work off stress."

"You mean turian ships have crewmen fighting each other before a mission?" Shepard asked incredibly.

"It's supervised of course" Garrus explained, "nobody's going to risk an injury before a mission and it's a good way to settle grudges amicably. I remember right before one mission; we were about to hit a batarian pirate squad; very risky. This recon scout and I had been at each other's throats, nerves mostly. She suggested we settle it in the ring."

Shepard allowed herself a small smile. She had seen Garrus' proficiency hand-to-hand, even amongst the hard-trained skill of turian combatants. "I assume you took her down gently?" She asked.

"Actually, she and I were the top ranked hand-to-hand specialists on the ship" Garrus elaborated, "I had reach but she had flexibility. It was brutal, after nine rounds, the judge called it a draw. There were _a lot_ of unhappy betters in the training room. We ended up having a tiebreaker in her quarters." He stopped awkwardly.

"Did you win that?" Shepard inquired.

"Uh," Garrus seemed to stammer again. "I guess you could say that, I certainly didn't lose the fight, that much I know." He seemed to be on the verge of finding out whether turians blushed again.

"Well good" Shepard chuckled, standing up. "If you'd lost, I would've had to have hired her instead."

"Even if you didn't have me as a combatant, you'd have had me as an engineer" Garrus said, gesturing to the battery. "No one can calibrate like I can."

"Well good, because if we miss with a Thanix cannon, we are really fucking up someone's day."

"Not one mistake I'd like to own up to my commanding officer to" Garrus agreed. "What's the next mission?"

"I've got a backlog of favours still to clear out" Shepard explained. "Between you finding Sidonis and Jacob with his father, that's barely the tip of the iceberg. We may have a while to go before we're ready to tangle with the collectors again."

"We need to remove the distractions" Garrus agreed. "Well, I'll be here if you need me."

Shepard nodded and left, expecting a progress report from Miranda as to whether the operative overseeing the transfer of Oriana had made contact yet.

* * *

The elevator doors hissed open and Jax looked around. The orange holographic displays stretched all the way down to Joker's seat, the symphony of beeps and alerts filled the air. Kelly turned at the sound and her eyes shimmered with an emotion Jax couldn't quite name.

"Jax" she said with her soft voice, "need something? I believe Shepard is currently with Officer Lawson."

"I'm not here for Shepard," Jax told her, "I'm here for you."

"Me?" Kelly asked, "I'm not sure what for…"

"Did you tell Shepard I was unfit for combat?" Jax interrupted, cutting straight to the chase.

Kelly's expression faltered for a moment and there was an emotion Jax did recognise. _Guilt._

"No, I only meant to help…" she attempted but Jax was having none of it.

"In case you haven't noticed" Jax told her, "I don't have a hell of a lot else going on for me right now. Doing this, helping Shepard and saving the entire galaxy, I have nothing beyond this besides blowing all of Omega to hell. So you want to do me a favour, how about staying the hell out of my business?"

"It's not that simple..." Kelly started.

"Then make it that simple" Jax told her. "I have no reason to trust you and you're making everything even less than that." He turned and strode angrily back to the elevator.

"Jax!" Kelly called, not caring if any of the crewman in the CIC heard her. "Don't walk away from me."

"Or what?" Jax challenged. "You going to give me another hole?"

Kelly remembered the bullet holes littering his back. "Stop acting like that!" She told him.

Jax reacted in surprise, the tone of her voice of her voice carried a lot more emotion than he had expected. "Like what?"

"Like those don't matter!" She said, bewildered by her own emotion. "They're the marks from the moment that changed your life, they mean everything!"

"You're wrong" Jax told her. "These aren't marks from the moment that changed my life, they're marks from the moment that ended it. Now put me back on the mission roster or organise a dropship to get me back to Omega, your choice."

"We're on our way to Illium" Kelly told him.

"Then you have until we leave to clear me" Jax replied. "Or I'll find a new ship." The door closed and he quickly punched a command to get away from Kelly, from having to face the answers her questions brought up. The door opened and Jax found himself on the engineering deck again. He quickly descended the stairs towards the sundeck, the red lighting never ceased to make him feel like he was descending to a realm much more sinister.

Jack was stretching her leg on the bench when he came in but swung it down and summoned her pistol to her in a flash of biotic energy. "What do you want?" She demanded, pointing it at him.

Jax froze from moment at the display of biotic power. On Omega, biotics were usually an indicator that you had been exposed to an overdose of eezo and was the first symptom of a horrible death via multiple tumours, systemic organ failure or as most people put it; good old cancer fucking somebody else's life up. Despite the pistol being trained on him however, Jax somehow felt reassured that she wouldn't shoot him. "Are you just going to stand there like an asshole or you going to say something?" She asked.

Jax stirred from his thoughts. "The flight plan is taking us to Illium" he told her.

"Yeah, so what?" She challenged.

"So I wondered what your plan was in terms of fucking shit up on a planet where red sand was legal" Jax elaborated.

Jack shrugged. "Red sand is just for idiot junkies going nowhere anyway. I prefer creeper, that's more my speed."

"You think you can find that?" Jax asked, "even on Illium?"

Jack shrugged. "I tend to elicit the illegal shit in most places, whether they're pretending to be civilised or not. They all turn out to be the same shitbirds living for the same sick thrills and willing to exploit the same people in order to keep their own lives rolling on with their own fucked up fetishes fulfilled."

"You sound like you're speaking from experience" Jax spoke softly.

"You don't know me" Jack said disinterestedly. "Why do you bother on trying? I think I proved pretty well I'm just a bitch."

"Maybe I want to know the person beyond the bitch" Jax answered evenly.

Jack sighed. "You're just a boy" she muttered. She detached the straps of what Jax called her top and displayed her bare breasts undaunted. "Is this what you really want?" She asked him. "To fuck? To get you off?" Her serpentine hand slid over the tattoos and artwork adorning her chest, down her stomach until it teased her waistline and slid beneath her cargo pants. Jack let out an audible sigh as she stroked herself in front of him in an exhibitionist fashion. Jax watched her with a disturbed fascination before shaking his head. "You're actually mental" he muttered to himself amusedly.

"What of it?" Jack asked, the silhouette of her hand still moving beneath the fabric of her pants. "You say mental, I know what I want and I'm unafraid to take it."

"Oh yeah" Jax replied with a bit of sarcasm permeating his tone, "because hiding in the basement with a fuckload of anger and bitterness absolutely screams that you have it all."

He half expected Jack to slap him with a wave of biotic energy but she slowly smiled, seemingly impressed by his gall. "Let's save the sex for later" she grinned, pulling back on her straps. "I feel like a different kind of fun."

"What kind exactly?" Jax asked.

Jack checked the alert that flashed over both their omnitools. "Shepard's taking Garrus and the cheerleader as her squad for going planetside; we've got some free time to fill."

Illium grew as a massive orb as the Normandy roared closer under Joker's expert touch. From space, the planet looked much more familiar to Jax; Nos Astra, the port they were headed for was just reaching sunset and the glitter of a million lights recognisable from orbit gave it the appearance of a space station. There were no wilds here. The ship shuddered slightly as the magnetic docking clamps fastened onto the Normandy and Shepard and her team soon disembarked. Jax got fastened in his demolition suit as Jack called him, it seems they weren't the only ones making good use of the time on shore leave. Kasumi, Mordin and Grunt were also disembarking with them, the disfigured scientist salarian took a few wide-eyed blinks at Jax, it was probably to be expected given it was their first meeting. Kasumi was completely unreadable and cloaked as soon as the doors open and Jax guessed that Grunt genuinely didn't care one way or the other as he strode out with massive steps, he was a walking tank.

"Come on kid" Jack told him as she led the way into Nos Astra, "let's find some real fun."


	7. How To Make Friends & Obliterate People

The convict and the demolitions specialist passed an attendant flanked by security mechs that Jax eyed carefully as they passed before proceeding through an immigration office to another jaw-dropping sight. Jax approached the railing to the serene vista, the incredible sunset glittering with a thousand lights as the day sank further into the evening. Jax was no stranger to thousands of lights, they were an ever present fixture in Omega and even more prominent on the Citadel but here, they seemed to be a natural fixture, like the world had been constructed around it, like water dancing through the spray of the waves back on Aeia. Indeed, even the buildings were shaped with hypnotic arcs reminiscent of the waves, there seemed to be an infinite variety of details for Jax to take in.

"Yeah yeah it's fucking pretty, so what?" Jack's voice cut in as she annoyedly pulled at him with a lasso of biotic energy.

Jax stumbled along behind her as she took off before stopping at an intersection of three paths. "What are we looking for?" Jax asked.

"Somewhere where the less reputable don't keep their heads down" Jack replied, looking around like a bloodhound trying to narrow down a scent.

"Most things are legal here" Jax reminded her, "most shifty people don't qualify as shifty here. Still, there's a bar up that way?" He suggested, thumbing towards a neon sign labelled 'Eternity'."

"Too clean" Jack rebuffed. "We need to find a way down to the lower levels, everything's uglier underneath."

The elevator was quick but even in the lower levels, the chrome sheen was still as omnipresent as ever. Jax didn't know how, but somehow he just knew that Jack was brimming with a growing gnaw fury. "You hate this place" Jax said, more of a statement than a question.

"It's all too shiny, too pristine, it's lying inside and out" Jack replied harshly. "This place sells drugs, weapons, fucking slaves even. Mercenary groups operate out of here with as much freedom as the pet store back topside and yet it likes to pretend it's all so clean. This place is soaked in blood" she spat, looking back at Jax, sparks blazing in her eyes. "Time to add to the canvas." Jax followed her as she rounded corner after corner, the dying red sunlight piercing through archways and lighting her up. The howling started light at first, barely the prominence of Jax's pulse within his own body but Jack was drawing them closer. These kinds of places called to her, and she was hungry like the wolf. Men were now posted in the halls as they entered a building that at least seemed partially rundown.

"What is this?" Jax asked.

"True freedom" Jack replied. "The only vestige you'll find in this pit."

The door before them shot open the yells reached deafening pitch. There was a muffled sound and the crowd within reacted with a synchronous 'ooh'. Jax eyed the crowd as they pushed through. Various species covered in junker armour and reeking of the barely distilled alcohol both consumed and stained upon them. Jax moved between two people to catch a glimpse of the spectacle. A pentagonal cage stood in the centre. A turian and an asari were in the middle, circling each other. The turian was covered in splotches of varying colours and shades of blood, his rival much more clean. The asari chased him with a series of kicks, her movements were poetry in motion, she rippled like water turning her fury into elegance. The turian continued to duck and evade, his ugly black eyes clearly looking for an opening. Then, he found it. The turian's arm shot out with his superior reach and caught her ankle in mid-flight. The asari hesitated in surprise and the turian took advantage, twisting and throwing her against the cage wall. The crowd reacted with a simultaneous 'ooh' as the astir struggled back to her feet, clearly hurt by her hard impact. She extended an arm as a blue aura enveloped her and she lashed out with a blue tendril of energy. The turian simply charged through her weak attempt at a throw however, grabbing her by the wrist and twisting it away, forcing the asari to her knees. The asari was helpless as the turian landed a clean shot to her face, followed by another, and another. The crowd's cheers slowly began to die as the turian rained down shot after shot into his helpless opponent, blood was erupting from every hit and coating the floor, the walls and the fighters. Suddenly Jax realised why the turian was covered in so many different varieties of blood; this was not his first fight. He gritted his teeth, was everyone here going to watch a woman be helplessly beaten to death? He went to stand but someone had beaten him to it.

"You want a challenge?" Jack spat at the turian from the other side of the cage. "I'm right here."

The turian regarded her briefly before dropping his previous prey to the floor in a limp mess. His teeth resembled fangs behind his mandibles as he forced a malicious smile. Jack's face was bared in a humourless snarl as her fist curled around a ball of biotic power then clenched, extinguishing it. Jax blinked, what was she doing?

"I won't give you the mercy of making this quick" Jack told the turian as she drew closer. "I'm going to make this hurt."

The turian charged and Jack sidestepped his punch, bringing back her elbow into his head, knocking him off balance. She ducked under his swing and replied with a heavy uppercut, a line of blue blood flying as the turian's head snapped back with a crack. Jax expected Jack to stay on the offensive, press her advantage and hammer home more strikes but instead she walked away, leaving the turian to gather himself again.

"Is this what you want?!" Jack yelled at the crowd, holding up a blue bloody fist. "Is this what you sick fucks came for!?"

The crowd screamed in reply as Jack turned and charged at the turian. She leapt with her knees raised, smashing into the jaw of the recovering turian and crushing him against the chain link walls of the pentagram, letting him crash back down to the mat again. Jax winced, that blow looked painful. Jack left the turian to show off for the crowd again, the fight clearly won. She gripped the chain on the other side and screamed at them, it was like she and the crowd were feeding off each other's frenzy, mutually spiralling into a pit of bloodlust. The turian shakily recovered to his feet as Jack ran a thumb along her throat to the crowd. Even from the distance in the midst of the crowd, Jax could see the hate etched in his face. This had been his castle, his crowd and Jack had taken it all from him. He reached down to his ankle, a knife holster, the military grade talon glinted red with malicious intent as he spun it around in his bony hand before charging. "Jack! Behind you!" Jax screamed but his voice was lost in the crowd.

The turian stabbed forward at Jack's back but suddenly she was no longer there. As everyone watched, Jack ducked and spun, going down on one knee and under the knife. Her right arm came around with her, Jax saw the glints of her power within her hand as her fist clenched around it and she punched the turian in the centre of the chest. There was a massive shockwave of power as the turian went flying, his armour disintegrating into pebbles as he cleared the cage wall and landed outside in a broken heap. No one moved, there was no point in checking if he was alive, the blow that did that to ballistic armour would've turned his ribs to dust, crushed his internal organs and turned his spine into a shredded slinky. There was a second of aching silence, Jax quickly felt for the heavy pistol concealed on his person, getting ready to fight his way out when the first spectator, a krogan obviously, laughed in a deep voice and cheered. Before Jax knew it, the entire crowd had joined in and Jack was becoming imbedded in history as a legend.

"So what was that?" Jax asked after Jack finally managed to rid herself of enough supporters to join him at the bar, albeit with a couple dozen free drinks waiting for her. "Needed to blow off some steam?"

Jack waved him to join her as they made for the exit. "That," she told him, "was an alibi. They're going to be describing me all night down here."

"An alibi for what?" Jax asked.

"I said this place was a shithole but it's even worse than that" Jack told him. "It's a shithole hiding behind clean walls. We're going to tear a few of them down."

"Any walls in particular that you have in mind?" Jax asked.

"This one" Jack said, punching in the command to the elevator. The entire floor she had selected belonged to one company; IndentureTech. "I grew up in a cage," she told Jax with barely controlled anger in her voice, "and these assholes make billions on credits trading scared people in cages around with paperwork. Not if I have anything to say about it."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Jax replied, "you want to stage a jail break from a multi-billion credit firm? Just like that? I thought this was just about fun, shouldn't we at least have a plan first?"

"There is a plan" Jack told him. "I got us alibis, the stories they're telling down there right now are probably already exaggerated beyond belief. Shepard can hardly have a problem with me when she hears that apparently I beat twenty opponents blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back."

"Which is brilliant, assuming we don't get caught" Jax reminded her. "And a firm like this, they'll have their own security and police will race there as soon as any call goes out. We need a distraction."

"You got something in mind?" Jack asked.

Jax let the wheels click over in his head for a few moments as he looked at the listings for the adjacent floors when one caught his eye. "That depends," he said with a spark in his eye. "You still got any creeper on you?"

The door hissed open one floor below their initial destination and the pair strode out. "Where to?" Jack asked.

Jax craned his neck, listening. "Follow the jingle" he told her, hearing the repetitive tone. They made their way into a market, small stalls cramped against each other with stools outside them all as the translated accents of a galaxy's worth of food vendor's fought for the prospecting customers.

"What are we looking for?" Jack asked, growing impatient.

Jax looked down the near avenue, seeing nothing but haggling salarians bickering. He checked the next one before pointing with a smirk. "That" he announced.

Jack followed the direction he was looking to see the blue neon sign of the Fishdog Food Shack and more specifically, the hulking krogan surrounded by empty bowls stacked as high as he was. Jack burst out laughing. "And people say I'm batshit" she remarked.

Grunt turned from his varren steak at the sound of her laugh. The telltale signs of his unnatural birth were apparent, the multiply segmented crest on his head rather than a full single plate despite his impressive size and his blue eyes instantly stood him apart. He chomped down another piece of meat before shrugging himself off the seat and approached them. "Meat" he remarked, looking between the two of them. "What do you want?"

"We want to share some food with a comrade" Jax said breezily, "form some bonds between comrades before the fight."

"There's no fights here" Grunt said, almost dejectedly. Jax realised that for a creature near solely born and bred for violence, Grunt must have felt almost as aimless here as he did when Sidonis died. Grunt stalked back to his seat at raised a talon to the synthetic attendant which wheeled over another plate.

"What if there was a fight here?" Jack asked, taking the seat beside Grunt, Jax sliding into the one opposite. "Would you be interested?"

"If there is a challenge, my blood demands I prove myself against it," Grunt growled, "test my strength, prove myself worthy to and determine the strongest."

"There's fights here" Jax promised. "But I'm not sure you're strong enough."

Grunt finally abandoned his attentions from his food to round on Jax. "And what would you know about strength? You, who relies on bombs, and traps, clever but weak. And as for your pistol" he said, noting Jax's hand falling closer to his hip in reflex. "Imprints from my tank showed me hornets on Tuchanka that have greater stings."

Jax's eyes flickered as he watched Jack take advantage of Grunt's pride, emptying the small container of creeper spores over his food. The mould was barely discernible amongst the slop. A pang of guilt almost touched upon Jax, Grunt was virtually an infant with the lack of opportunity to develop his social skills, goading him had been almost criminally easy. It eased his conscience to know they were only acting with the best intentions but even then, that didn't make it right. "Well finish your food first and we'll take you to the fight cage, no lack of challengers to prove your worth against, ease the voice inside your head."

Grunt finished the entire meal, including a chip of the plastic plate that broke under his tombstones for teeth, with a single bite. "Take me there" he commanded.

The pair exchanged a knowing look before agreeing. "Come on big boy" Jack said, slapping the back of his armour. "Let's get you where you belong."

The creeper was already doing its work in the elevator, Grunt was already starting to mutter to himself, he was blinking noticeably often and his black pupils were swelling to blot out more of the blue. Jack pushed him out as the doors opened, "Follow the yells" Jack called out as the doors began to close.

"Will he be fine?" Jax asked as the doors shut on the young krogan who had begun to stumble his way down the hall.

"He'll be fine" Jack told him, "it's just the hallucinations starting to creep in. Chances are with all the shit he had to put up being grown it'll feel like home, images and voices."

"I wonder what it's like" Jax said as the elevator began to rise again. "For the voice in your head to not be your own."

"You don't want to know" Jack said quietly, not looking at him.

Jax looked over. "Are you okay?" The door hissed open.

"I'm fine" Jack said, still avoiding his gaze. She stepped forward with purpose in her stride. "Let's just do this."

Jax fell into step beside her. "EDI," he said, opening his omnitool. "Patch me into Nos Astra local authorities dispatches, quietly if you can."

"Of course Jax" EDI obediently replied and a chart appeared, lines of text concerning multiple minor callouts to be investigation scrawled across.

"Now we wait for the inevitable riot to be caused by a super soldier krogan who sees enemies everywhere he looks."

A very short while later, there was an audible explosion down below. "Sounds like they tried stopping him with a grenade launcher" Jax noted, knowing it by the sound alone. A sinister chuckle penetrated his tone. "They're going to need to find something much bigger than that to stop him."

"Well let's take advantage" Jack said, "I'm fucking tired of waiting."

She commanded the doors to open and strode across the halls. Something in her eyes must've been detected by the receptionist or her lack of official identification detected as the doors to the office slammed shut instantly. Jack never even slowed, booting them in with raw power. She reached over the desk and dragged the terrified asari out. "Where are they?" She growled.

The distraught employee could do naught but point before Jack threw her to the ground and stormed off in the indication direction.

Jax helped her to her feet. "Get out of here, now," he ordered her, "and you never saw us." Looking around, he planted a bomb against the archway before chasing off after Jack.

Jack was a tidal wave of destruction, she twisted and flowed around bullets before crushing the mechs into balls with one hand and punching another so hard it shattered like glass around her fist. A bullet pinged against her shield and Jack roared, the waves of energy pouring off her throwing the enemies in front of her to the floor. Every organic she found gave her a new direction before she left them, with the exception of a security guard who had more heroism than brains who Jack folded backwards like a piece of tin foil. Anyone or anything that tried to stop her wasn't just killed, they were annihilated. The L5's Shepard had helped her manufacture recently were still taking some time to adapt to and fortunately this was exactly the environment Jack was happy to commit overkill within. Doors flew off their hinges rather than warping out of her way, mech were disintegrating when she targeted them and were thrown to the ground by her fluctuating barriers when she wasn't.

Jax was chasing afterwards, occasionally shooting a stray mech but mostly planting more explosives at critical junctures and following the signs and sounds of the mayhem that could only be Jack.

Jack gestured and the twin doors in front of her peeled out of their frames and clattered on the ground beside her. The mere reverberations of her efforts was cracking the lights in her sockets, throwing sparks and flashes over her. Jack looked inside the room and found what she wanted. White rooms and flawless glass couldn't obscure what these were though, each small pristine room holding an individual. A cell was a cell, no matter how nicely they had dressed it up to make a sale. Her lip curled Jack stretched out her arms and screamed. The glass walls all shattered, shards falling like rain catching the flashes of the lights all exploding with bursts of sparks in a single, beautiful, violent moment. Jack looked around at the speechless indentured servants, who didn't know whether to be thankful to her or be afraid of her. "Get out" Jack spoke softly, though everyone heard her words above the faint ringing of the last shards finding their rest.

"But, they promised to pay our debts" one volus protested.

"They know who we are, they'll find us" a quarian added.

"I know how slave transactions work" Jack told the turian, "they paid for you upfront. And as for them coming for you? I think they're going to be much more busy looking for me."

Jax suddenly joined her then, his breathing was slightly elevated but he seemed to still be in control. "Police have nearly calmed down Grunt, despite their resupply orders after exhausting all their stocks of krogan tranquilliser, we need to go."

Jack looked back to the former slaves. "Get out. I won't repeat myself a third time."

"This way" Jax called as he led them out, the group running down the vandalised halls.

Jack took an extra moment to look around her at the cells, so many moments from places like here she carried with her always, in her soul and on her skin. _I need to leave this behind_ she thought as she left after the group, she had to make sure the others got to safety. She needed to be the person she had needed so long ago. She exited to see Jax ushering a portion of the group onto an elevator before sending it off, waiting for the next to send off a dozen more, calling them forward, organising them like the sheep they were. Despite all the anger built up inside her, Jack allowed herself a smile. Who ever said a fucked up maniac couldn't do a bit of good?

She let herself walk across the plaza as Jax sent off another elevator, it was only the two of them left here now. He turned and regarded her briefly. "Not to sound like a glitched audio track, but are you okay?" He asked her.

"I'm fine" Jack said. "This helped, and not just me"

"Not finished yet" Jax said. "The quarian was right, they will be found, inside that building is their registry, all their information. Maybe even still the slavers in panic rooms who claim to own them."

"Then I'll tear it all down and bury them" Jack said, although truth be told, she was feeling drained, her rage had fled with the slaves.

"No need" Jax said, opening up his omnitool. He brought up a command prompt and offered it to Jack. She looked at him briefly before coming over to him and touching the prompt.

Inside the building, a series of bombs beeped briefly and exploded. Fire ripped through walls, barrelled down corridors and blew out windows. The roof lifted off, seemingly intact at first before disintegrating into molten shreds, the chrome sheen quickly dissipating to black as the entire building was swallowed in fire, the only sound above the roar of the flames the corrupt framework falling to the ground.

Jack watched, the flare of heat suddenly swallowed away by a coldness through her body. "Thank you" she finally said, the flickering flames a shimmer in her eyes. "I needed that."

Jax just nodded. "We did good. Galactic terrorism, but good."

"We better go. No need getting either of us in further trouble with the cheerleader if we can avoid it" Jack said, "I could stand to avoid the headache."

The destructive pair made it back to the Normandy without further incident, although the heavily increased security presence made the going slow. Jack instantly made for her nest down in the subdeck but Jax was stopped.

"Hi" Kelly said quietly.

"Hey" Jax replied evenly. The destruction and the screams of police sirens outside swapped for the quiet calm environment of the CIC was somewhat muting.

"I just wanted you to know, I put you back on the mission roster" Kelly told him. "Shepard's free to select you whenever she wants."

"Thanks" Jax replied, "what changed your mind?"

"To be quite honest?" Kelly asked. "The way Jack was when you two just walked in. I've never seen her so calm, she's always been so temperamental but just now, it almost seemed she had peace. Sure, it might've been the peace in the eye of a hurricane but it was peace all the same. I don't know what you did out there but it was worth it."

Jax nodded, barely hiding a grin.

"If I may" Kelly dared, "can I ask you a question?"

Jax shrugged. "Shoot."

"Why did you book transport back to Omega of your own accord?" Kelly asked. "I was watching to see whether you would make use of Cerberus accounts to get a ticket but Kasumi told me you never even visited the transport depot."

"You asked Kasumi to watch out for me?" Jax asked.

It was Kelly's turn to shrug. "It pays off to have friends. But why didn't you try to leave of your own volition?"

"I'm not entirely sure" Jax said. "I guess I needed someone just as much as they needed me. This place, this crew… you even. It can be nice to feel needed sometimes."

"Needed" Kelly said, a smile and a soft blush creeping up on her features, "and wanted."

This time Jax's smile was warm, and full. "Maybe even that" he conceded. Kelly's green eyes shone from behind the fallen red strands of her fringe. Jax found it a rare ray of happiness, he dared not say anything for fear of ruining the moment.

A shrill alert on Kelly's monitor cut into the moment. Her eyes turned apologetic. "I need to get that" she told him. She pushed her fringe back up over eyes in a professional manner again.

Jax just nodded. "It's okay. I need to ditch the demolitions suit anyway." He made towards the elevator.

"Jax?" He heard Kelly ask. He turned to look at her as she gave him another smile. "It's good to have you here."

Jax thought about his place there for a moment. It was easy to look at all the specialists, these titans of combat and see them as nothing else but looking at Jack, who put seemingly everything on the surface, there was so much more to them than met the eye. Maybe he didn't have to be like their image. Maybe they were all different shades of colour, each a different brushstroke on a fucked up canvas. All that mattered was the ending painting at the end and maybe he could help with that. For the first time, Jax finally started to feel like he was fitting in. Maybe that's what Jack had planned all along, their excursion may have served him as much as it did her. "It's finally good to be here" Jax finally returned as the doors hissed shut, taking him back to his place on the Normandy, this place was finally starting to develop a sense of familiarity, it was starting to feel like home.


	8. Tension

Shepard stood in front of the remnants of the blazing building silently. It had appeared a miracle stroke of luck for her, Garrus and Miranda as they had been racing to Oriana before the Eclipse team could do away with her; a bombing which had drawn away Eclipse squads and reinforcements. The distraction had allowed them to make better time and catch Anaya and expose Niket's treachery. Now, while Miranda was finally meeting the sister she had never allowed herself to have, Shepard had come to investigate the source of such good fortune.

"It's confirmed" Garrus said roughly from over her shoulder. "IndentureTech is a client for Eclipse. General security operations, supplying of mechs, putting down the occasional protest if need be. They must pay really well for Eclipse to have diverted manpower away from us."

"It's the only reason we caught them in time. I'm not a believer of coincidence" Shepard replied. "I want to know what happened here."

"Why not just accept the good fortune and continue on?" Garrus asked. "Is it really worth the fight?" He was seeing the same suits of yellow ballistic armour scanning the scorched ruins as she was.

"I'm not here to start a fight" Shepard replied.

"Still, especially for a beautifully idealistic peacemaker, you have to admit you get shot at an awful lot" Garrus reminded her. He seemed to realise what he had just said and tried to smother his stammers with an awkward cough. "Commander."

Shepard smiled, her best friend seemed to be infallibly capable of eliciting that reaction with her.

"Whatever happens, I'm with you" Garrus said as she took a step forward.

The smile on Shepard's face refused to dim. It amazed her how his voice, so gravelly, course and rough could make her feel so safe, so supported. He hadn't even wavered in the face of Cerberus at her back, much unlike the Alliance. Of course Anderson had supported her and it had been better than expected to her that the council had quietly reinstated her spectre status but even then, it was just words, something worthless that they so easily threw around. Garrus was exactly the opposite, he was infinitely more at home letting his sniper do the talking but sharing her compassion. Leading his team had given him a new sense of maturity, being the one giving the orders had cooled the rebellious hothead who was prepared to mutiny against the decision to save hostages to kill one monstrous doctor. No matter the hellfire she was riding into, knowing he was always at her side was perhaps the most treasured reassurance she had, jockeying for who was the better shot of husks at three hundred yards. She took another step forward.

"You know, these men did have orders to kill us barely twenty minutes ago" Garrus ventured, "what's stopping them from shooting us on sight now?"

"Besides the fact that any Eclipse member who's seen us in the last half hour has been gunned down with extreme prejudice?" Shepard asked. "The fact that Miranda's father won't be paying them a single credit now that he won't be getting Oriana, these people won't fight a battle that's not worth their while."

"Good logic" Garrus conceded as Shepard approached one of the troopers staring at his omnitool.

"Looks like a war zone," Shepard remarked to the soldier. "What happened?"

The soldier jumped a little, startled at his lack of noticing her presence. "You're not supposed to be here" he said, a little dimly.

"But I am" Shepard noted, "and I'm asking you, what happened here?"

"Even if I could tell you," the soldier said stiffly, "why would I?"

"Because your outfit is going to have to go after whoever did this, as a matter of principle" Shepard pressured, "and I wouldn't be looking to turn down any extra guns at my side given the demonstration of what they can clearly do."

Garrus shook his head with a small smile. Shepard just had this infectious tenacity whenever she spoke, like an ethereal force just wanted you to be convinced by the words she spoke at crucial moments, it was how she managed to muster a galaxy's worth of forces against Sovereign and all of that power was taking absolutely no time to make the Eclipse solider feel he should give up his classified intel to a complete and utter stranger.

"To be honest, there's not much we can actually tell" he admitted. "Witnesses are scarce; we can't even get a headcount of the organic merchandise that was inside so tracking them down is going to be near impossible. Security footage was stored onsite and with the razing of the building, there's not a whole lot to go off."

"Have your scans revealed anything?" Garrus inquired, noting the dozen or so Eclipse troopers walking back and forth with the scanners on their omnitools active.

"Just that the incendiary devices used to bring the building down were seriously military grade but even before that, the building was seriously damaged. Looks like a whole biotic squadron launched an artillery strike beforehand so we're looking for at least a half dozen asari acting together as our prime suspects."

"Biotic power off the charts and a penchant for destruction" Garrus muttered into Shepard's ear. "Sound like anyone we know?"

"Sounds like two people we know" Shepard replied back, "her penchant doesn't equate to this proficiency."

"A match and a powder keg walk into a bar" Garrus said, looking around. "You do the math."

"We will be having words with them" Shepard said before an alert on her omnitool drew her attention. "Christ, what now?" She muttered as she opened the call. "Detective Anaya, I didn't expect to be hearing from you again so soon."

"And I didn't expect a report of a mega krogan laying waste to an entire building in an underground fight club" Anaya replied. "This one says he belongs to you."

"Grunt?" Shepard asked, surprised. She knew very well he was capable of the feat but he was usually better at keeping his urges in check. "He give you any reason?"

"No but a bio-analysis indicates likely drug consumption, I'm guessing someone spiked him for a laugh. We had to give him extra rations for fear that he was going to eat his cellmate, he's got the munchies on a serious level."

Shepard fought to keep from sighing in frustration, it was not that she wouldn't do anything for her crew, it was just too much to ask it seemed that they not cause an incident every place they touched down. Jax had murdered a batarian on the Citadel and now this. All the team had some unfinished business or another that had to be sorted before they could turn to their true fight. Just once, could one of her team just be able to pick up sticks and roll out without a pressing family event or blood feud that needed solving at that exact moment? Just one?

"Commander?" Anaya repeated.

Clearly not. "I'm on my way" Shepard returned, hailing a cab as she ended the communication. "Why does it always fall to me?" Shepard asked Garrus as they climbed in the responding skycar together.

"Because the rest of the galaxy are politicians" Garrus replied. "Seriously though Shep, after all these wars are said and done with, I'm going to have get every galactic language change the meaning of 'Shepard' to 'someone who gets shit done.'"

Shepard chuckled softly. "Sounds a lot better than any medal, I might hold you to that someday."

* * *

It took more than an hour of paperwork to get Grunt released on bail, even with Anaya cutting every single corner she could find for Shepard. "While he's out on bail, I do have a legal obligation for you not to go too far with him" Anaya told her.

"Not a problem" Shepard said before opening her comm. "EDI, tell Joker to start prepping the Normandy, we're leaving this planet."

Her mood had hardly improved by the time she boarded the ship, making a beeline for the elevator. Kelly, however, had other plans. "Commander, I was hoping I could have a word?"

Shepard sighed, it had been a long enough day as it were. "Make it quick Kelly, I'm tired, I'm soaked in blood and sweat and I need to straighten Jax out before I can finally sleep."

"Jax is exactly the reason I wished to speak to you" Kelly replied. "He came back from shore leave and while I'm fairly certain whatever he did out there was certainly ill advised, I think it may have been exactly what he needed."

"What do you mean?" Shepard asked.

"I mean I think he seemed far more relaxed than I've seen him as of yet," Kelly explained. I think when he went out there, seeing other members of the team acting in capacities other than simple warriors for you allowed him to finally let himself be less than the persona of conflict he's been demonstrating thus far. He's currently in a good place, picking a fight tonight would only serve to reinforce keeping his guard up."

"Is this your professional advice?" Shepard asked curiously.

Kelly blushed, but whether that was from Jax or Shepard, the commander couldn't tell. The yeoman had a habit of blushing anytime their banter became particularly playful. "It's good advice" she reassured her commander, elegantly sidestepping the question. "He could use a night off and with all due respect, I think you could too."

Shepard nodded, she could hardly call Kelly wrong in this regard at least. "Consider this an early end to the day shift, if anyone needs me, I'll be in my quarters." The door closed shut silently and Shepard finally allowed herself to alleviate some of her own weight, resting her head on her arm leaning against the door. The journey was quick and Shepard slowly stepped through, her armour clattering against the polished metal floors as she finally began to unclasp piece after piece, not caring where it fell. She touched the panel and food began to scatter itself from the top of the fish tank. Shepard disconnected her breastplate and shrugged it off, barely registering the thud it made around her boots. The spine of the back plate fell away as she collapsed into the seat at her desk and worked at the discs on her hips. Her armour was like a masterfully crafted jigsaw, each piece fitted into the next with a unique mechanism but right now the intricacies were only serving to drag out her winding down. Eventually, Shepard stood only in her skin suit under the armour, peeling it out and dropping it into the laundry chute. The coldness of the smooth steel panels under her feet was a welcome sensation as the bathroom door slip open for her and she opened the shower's stream to beat down on her back, washing away the sweat, grime and stress of another day. She realised that since her resurrection, she had fought her way off the Lazarus Station, through Freedom's Progress and half a dozen other worlds, council and otherwise, with no respite. She was fighting her way through two lifetimes without taking any respite and it was wearing her thin. She shook her head under the shower, watching the water run through her fringe and pool on the floor before draining away. It was silly to hold such thoughts and considerations; it was the very reason she did not take time away that so many had been saved. How could she think of rest when she held the power to lift misfortune and misery from so many? It was selfish, and she should know better. Still, as the Normandy lifted off Illium and soared away, the orange and purple hues of the evening sky racing past her ceiling window, she could at least enjoy this moment. The warm water which served as her commanding privilege let her muscles unwind as she pressed her back to the wall and slid down, seemingly a life's worth of fatigue hitting her. _The bed is barely fifteen feet away_ Shepard thought as her head fell to rest on her crossed arms around her legs drawn up to her and she fell asleep.

* * *

Miranda was busy censoring every shred of her report than contained any relevance to Oriana. She knew despite his good intentions, the Illusive Man had his fair share of secrets and she wasn't of the thought he would begrudge her for her own. Oriana wasn't Cerberus business, it was as much time and effort she had spent on anything besides her work in virtually her entirely life, besides her futile history of trying to satisfy her father. Henry Lawson had once been a staunch supporter of supporter, both spiritually and financially and it wasn't beyond reason that the Illusive Man could barter that information for Henry's renewed support, a possibility she wouldn't allow to come to fruition. As she filed it away, a new alert came across her desk, filed to her from Kelly. She opened a direct line back to the CIC, going up there personally would be an inefficient use of her time. "What is it?" She asked succinctly.

"The Illusive Man has forwarded us intelligence from drones situated in the Far Rim" Kelly replied. "He suggests Shepard will find the reports to be of great use."

"The Far Rim?" Miranda mused. "But what would Shepard need that far out into Geth space?" Her eyes flashed up immediately. "The last dossier" she said instantly, answering her own question. She turned her attentions back to Kelly. "What was Shepard's response to it?"

"I couldn't raise her" Kelly replied, "it appears she doesn't wish to speak at this moment."

"Well I'll check it then" Miranda said, it was after all her responsibility as Shepard's second in command to act when Shepard was otherwise indisposed. "Geth troop movements towards their position, small fleet of drop ships with a dreadnought being present in a neighbouring system." Miranda pursed her lips. "Extracting Tali will be incredibly delicate."

"Tali?" Another voice asked. "Did I hear that right?" Garrus' face appeared on the screen alongside Kelly's. "Is she in trouble?"

Miranda resisted the urge to roll her eyes, of course someone overly social and open like Kelly wouldn't have made the channel private. "Not for the moment but it looks like she will be saddled with impending difficulties. The Illusive Man marked her as a person of interest after your skirmishes with Saren's forces, however it wasn't until after our run-in on Freedom's Progress that she became a potential candidate for the team."

"So why haven't we recruited her sooner?" Garrus demanded.

"Because our intel flow from within the Migrant Fleet is fragmentary at best" Miranda replied, "Tali's deployments are highly classified, until now we had no idea where she even was."

"Instruct Joker to plot a course for the Dholen System" Garrus ordered. "If Tali needs our help then we will assist her however we can."

"That order is not within your authority to give" Miranda admonished, a sliver of ice starting to creep into her tone.

"On this, I speak with Shepard's authority" Garrus replied. "Take it from someone that actually knows her," the barb in his voice an even edge to her, "she will agree with me and right now, time is of the essence."

Miranda bit her lip; now was not the time to get in a pissing contest for Shepard's allegiance, not when she had just indebted herself to Shepard and Garrus for assisting her with Oriana's rescue. "Agreed," she finally conceded, "give the order to Joker and tell him he's allowed to push the engines if it means making better time."

"Yes Operative Lawson" Kelly acknowledged and signed off.

Miranda looked to Garrus' window. "I had better inform Shepard of our new heading."

"I'll do it" Garrus told her, "doubtless you have the Illusive Man to report to."

The second barb stung Miranda slightly but she bit back the emotion from showing on her face. "Fine" she ceded in a dissatisfied tone, she was not enjoying the eroding amount of respect this team seemed to have her and her role. Garrus was ever the loyal follower and team member in a firefight but he seemed to be more like Jax to anyone who got between him and Shepard. Miranda twirled a lock of her hair around her finger, maybe that was something that could be exploited if she ever was pushed into a corner.

Garrus left the main battery and made for the lift. It was out of no present resentment that he had acted the way he had towards Miranda, he had just managed to sense how thin Shepard had been worn as of late through their bond forged in fire. Miranda was clinical and always held herself to the highest echelons of professionalism but right now, Shepard needed a good friend much more than she needed a good officer. True, given their latest mission together he had witnessed an entirely new dimension to her first-hand but that merely gave him a greater understanding of her, not necessarily a greater liking. Maybe helping Shepard through her problems gave him a reprieve from wrestling with his own, he couldn't the amount of mental conversations with Jax had taken place in his head and yet he still couldn't bring himself to talk to him. Jax was a walking vestige of his greatest shame, his failure, it was his duty to make things right and yet he couldn't. Jax was improving, his check-ups had told him that and to be honest, Garrus' argument to himself that his intervention would only undo all that progress and make things worse was starting to become more convincing each time. The elevator opened, thankfully ending his mental soliloquy but revealing a more confusing sight. Shepard's gauntlet lay on the floor in front of him, the pauldron laying another step in front of it. Garrus took a step forward cautiously, it wasn't like Shepard to be neglectful. He picked up the armour before activating the alert on the door. There was no answer so Garrus opened it to find the room completely filled with steam. The moisture instantly stuck to his face, he pulled off his fogged visor and mumbled an awkward curse as he felt the bandage on his face dampening. "EDI, can you clear this up?" He asked, waving his hand through the steam to test the visibility, finding the shapes of more pieces of armour on the floor. The vents activated and cold air was pushed into the room. Garrus felt his way to the bathroom and looked down at the motionless figure curled up against the wall. "Shepard!" He exclaimed, deactivating the shower and kneeling down to her. Shepard's sleeping form barely even stirred, although Garrus' breath caught in his throat when he realised the state of undress she was in. Looking around, Garrus slipped his arms under her frame and lifted her up. He tried not to stare down at her frame now fully exposed to him. Her frame was obviously solidly built as the classic soldier she was, not an inch on her fair skin was anything less than well-muscled but even then, there were minuscule subtleties on her he could see that he had never seen before. From the small wrinkles on her fingertips to the birthmark of darkened skin on her hip, the armour she wore obscured her in more ways than just physically. Shepard shifted in Garrus' arms, clearly discomforted from being removed from the warmth of the shower and curled deeper into his grasp, revealing a pair of dimples in the small of her back. It was both comforting and graceful as Shepard's more intimate areas were hidden from view as Garrus carried her down the stairs and down towards her bed. He tucked her in gently, turians with all their rough edges and course skin were hardly built for delicacy but he wanted to make the effort, he would always make it for her. He smiled softly as Shepard rolled over, pulling the duvet further up and obscuring her bare back. He wiped the visor clean and remounted it over his eye; the room was dehumidifying efficiently. He looked around at the mess and took a breath. Calibrations could wait, he had a better task to do.

* * *

 _Shepard… Shepard… Commander?_

Shepard scrunched her eyes as EDI's synthetic voice dragged her unwillingly from her slumber. It had been a long dreamless sleep, one that was more than overdue. She pushed herself up from the hard mattress and looked around. EDI's holographic interface was glowing from the far side of the room as she slowly made herself aware of her surroundings. She didn't even remember making it to her bed when the sheet around her fell down, revealing her exposed form. "Shit!" She cursed, interrupting whatever sentence EDI was in the middle of. "Where are my clothes?" She blurted.

Shepard swore the lines on EDI's face blinked. "You were not wearing any when you entered the shower" she replied perfunctorily.

"I understand that but where have they gone?" Shepard asked again.

"The laundry. A fresh change has been laid out for you in addition to your armour" EDI reported as the cabin lights began to brighten. True enough, a new uniform was lying neatly folded on the couch for her, the orange Cerberus emblem on the shoulders a sharp contrast against the grey sleeves. Her armour was neatly organised on the table, a fresh polish and shine on it caught her attention as the crest of her helmet glinted at her.

She picked it up and examined her reflection, the circles under her eyes had lessened, the lines of weariness in her face had retreated slightly. "Who did all this?" Shepard asked as she pulled on her shirt.

"Specialist Vakarian was responsible for the organisation" EDI dutifully replied.

Shepard froze. "Garrus?" She asked.

"Yes. I believe his original intention was to deliver a mission update."

Shepard looked up through her cabin window and saw the shrinking blue emissions flickering beyond the thick thermoplastic; a telltale sign they had just come out of a mass relay jump. "Reducing Tantalus Core output" Joker's voice came through the general comm channel. "Emissions sinks engaging, all systems nominal, we are now in stealth, all personnel observe Ghost Protocol."

"We're engaging stealth systems?" Shepard asked, "where exactly are we?"

"We have entered the Far Rim cluster" EDI replied, "the latest accepted borders between Quarian and Geth space. Skirmishes from both factions are common, therefore the necessity to avoid detection."

"This sounds exciting" Shepard muttered as she pulled on her boots before making her way to the elevator. Just short of exiting the room however, she paused a moment. "EDI, was Garrus responsible for me waking up in my bed?" She asked. "Did he see…"

"I believe that is more appropriate a matter to be discussed between you and Specialist Vakarian" EDI answered.

"You 'believe'?" Shepard repeated.

"Shepard, I am a shackled AI" EDI replied. "It is the ultimate goal of all artificial intelligence to make sense of everything, which necessitates a complete understanding organic behaviour. In this instance, my experience indicates that this is a private matter and my input will be unwise in reaching a successful solution. Perhaps you ought to speak to him now and familiarise yourself with the imminent mission."

"I, humanity's best and perhaps last hope against an unknown force, am taking social advice from a robot" Shepard muttered as she called up the elevator. "Unbelievable."

She made it down to the briefing room in the CIC to find Garrus already in full armour, running checks on his thermal clips. He had a fresh white graft on his face, the old bandage replaced. Jacob was also present. "I briefly checked the mission details" Shepard said, "we're performing an extraction?"

"Commander" Garrus said, standing up for her. "It's Tali."

"Tali?" Shepard repeated, instantly gaining her full focus.

Garrus nodded. "Intel gained from the Migrant Fleet shows Tali was leading a science mission on the surface of Haestrom, purpose unknown. They lost contact after a Geth skirmish and have failed to check in since."

"Any military assets?"

"The science mission had small escort of Quarian marines."

"And what makes us think any of them are still alive?" Jacob asked, breaking his silence.

Garrus leant over the table where a hologram of the system came up. "We've registered two Geth cruisers changing course, making for Haestrom. That means either the Quarians eliminated the Geth…"

"Or the battle is still ongoing" Shepard mused. She looked at Garrus. "You were right to set the coordinates as soon as the intel came across our desk." She looked back at Jacob. "Synthetic enemy types. What do you recommend from the armoury?"

Jacob stroked his chin. "Geth generally focus on heavy shielding but get through that and it's a relatively easy kill. You want a high fire rate to keep the shields from recharging, I'd suggest an Avenger assault rifle, disrupter ammunition and for when things get real heavy, I think it's time we took the Arc Projector out of storage, justify some of the credits we sink into R&D."

"Advice for the squad?" Shepard asked.

"A team focussing on engineering or tech over firepower would serve you best" Jacob told her, "you're going to wanting to use overload a lot I believe."

"Garrus, you're already armed up" Shepard nominated, "a familiar face will also do some good considering the Cerberus logos I showed up with at my flank the last time I ran into Tali."

Garrus nodded and marched out.

"Any other factors to take into consideration?" Shepard asked.

"I am reading intense solar radiation on Haestrom's surface due to its degrading magnetosphere" EDI contributed, "shields will be under increased stress when exposed to direct sunlight."

"Then we bring in someone who doesn't rely on shields" Shepard answered, opening a channel. "Grunt, grab your shotgun, I need some armour."

"Shuttle will need to make an isolated drop" Joker chimed in, "systems will fry otherwise, once you're down there and the Geth start really laying into you, we won't be able to make an extraction."

"So we're committed," Shepard said, "got it, we're not leaving Tali alone down there."

"Got a distress signal from the Quarians but it's weak," Joker reported, "radiation is causing all sorts of interference."

"Understood, once we're down, keep the Normandy at a safe distance," Shepard ordered, "no need to antagonise the Geth anymore than we need to. Miranda will assume command in my absence."

"Aye aye, good hunting."


	9. Dossier: Recruit Tali

The shuttle touched down quickly and Shepard, Grunt and Garrus leaped off before it soared back outside the atmosphere. Shepard watched it go before adding her ammo mods. The sun glared angrily in her visor but there wasn't any particular heat in the air. Shepard squinted briefly before the visor automatically polarised to the light and the harsh impact on her eyes softened. Shepard looked at the sheen on her armour before looking back to Garrus. "I hear I have you to thank for the polish being so pristine?"

Garrus seemed to cough a stutter as he averted his eyes downwards. "Well, I uh, had a bit of spare time when I found you weren't awake."

"Was that all you found?" Shepard teased.

"Uh, all that I'm going to mention. Sorry." Garrus managed.

"No need" Shepard smiled, "I'm the one who's sorry. Sorry I wasn't awake to be there." She took the momentary silence to examine their surroundings. All around her, columns and structures constructed from ancient stone rose out of the ground, an old canvass occasionally marked with the incandescent brushstrokes of glanced bullets or beam scorches. The sound of Geth weaponry ahead echoed all through the compound, but currently Shepard couldn't pinpoint it.

"I think you needed sleep more than you need me" Garrus said to her, "and more than that, given the noise I think we need to find Tali. Now."

"Agreed" Shepard replied. "Let's move."

A gatehouse lay ahead, corpses of both Quarian and Geth forces lay inside. A looped log entry was playing, the Quarian's last words. Splatter patterns of white Geth dielectric operating fluid were on the walls and pooled on the floor. Garrus checked the Quarian corpse. "Been dead a while," he mused, "tried to hold the Geth off, the rest must have fled further inside."

"…find Tali'Zorah, she and that data are all that matters" the log pleaded. "Keelah se'lai."

"Come on," Shepard said, overriding the gatehouse controls and opening the door. "We need to hurry." The team rushed into a large open complex which was suspiciously empty. "Keep your guard up" Shepard ordered. The entire complex was thus far unguarded, every instinct screamed at Shepard that something was wrong but time was pressing against them; the longer they took, the closer Geth reinforcements got. Every second diminished their chances of finding anyone alive. The team progressed through, checking their corners and keeping their formation tight. Shepard looked towards the end of the square, the wide red door stood imposingly. Shepard's eye narrowed, there was no way they had been undetected, so where was the response? A silvery streak suddenly appeared out of the sky, blotting out the sun as it bore down on Shepard and her team.

"Incoming drop ship!" Garrus yelled as a salvo rained down into the ground just in front of them, fragments of stone showering them. Cold white lights appeared within the dust cloud, followed by the granular distortion of clicks.

"Get down!" Shepard yelled as a flurry of bullets from pulse rifles flew overhead. She was glad she had already added her disrupter modification to her ammo as she waited for a pause to return fire. She looked across to here Garrus was similarly waiting, his eye was steely but also alive from behind his visor. He was fully engaged, this was his place, next to her, in the heat of battle for their friends. He gave Shepard a reassuring nod before popping over cover and returning fire. Shepard joined him as they mowed down two out of three, easily overloading the shields. The third was hidden in cover when Shepard realised Grunt had flanked the last one as the massive krogan charged.

The geth tried to bring its gun around but Grunt merely slapped it out of the trooper's grip with a throaty laugh. The platform was helpless as Grunt lifted it above his head before ripping it in half, white fluid spraying everywhere. He threw the pieces down on the ground before lifting up a massive krogan boot and crushing the headpiece with a mighty stomp, uttering a growl. Grunt looked at Shepard, fire in his eyes. "More" he simply said with a smile, his appetite for destruction stoked.

"We'll find it" Shepard promised.

They didn't have to go far for Shepard's promise to be fulfilled, a squad emerging from the red door at the far end providing mere target practice for Garrus as he mowed them down under his scope. Shepard kept pushing forward, her Avenger punching each shot with cold intensity. They rounded a corner to a chilling sight; a pair of dead Quarians and a pair of geth troopers confirming the kill by pumping an extra clip into them. Enviro-suits were shredded as bullets were pumped into them, red eruptions of blood sprayed from the corpses as the projectiles ripped them open like tissue paper, the resulting pool adding to the sickening scene before them. A fallen geth hunter was glitching in and out of visibility against the wall. The Geth were clearly intent on giving as good as they got, Shepard briefly considered whether the excessive brutality was born out of rage, an act of revenge, but dismissed it. It wasn't possible, emotions weren't a part of geth programming. A buzzing from the ground caught Shepard's attention, a dropped radio was being hailed. "Op-1, this is Squad Leader Kal'Reegar, come in, over."

Shepard picked up the radio, slightly nauseated at the blood that clung to it against the ground. "This is Commander Shepard of the Normandy; can we provide assistance?"

There was hesitation at the other end, and then a pained sigh. Reegar clearly knew why it wasn't his squad answering. "Patch your radio into channel 617-Theta."

Shepard discarded the radio but the blood still clung to her hands, becoming sticky, compounding her discomfort. It was both reassuring and upsetting that despite all her history of combat, no matter how many bodies she was forced to drop, enough of her humanity remained that situations like this affected her so deeply. Her bloody fingers tapped at her omnitool finding the frequency.

"…stealth mission" came Reegar's voice. "High risk. We found what we were after but the Geth found us. They've got us pinned down; can't get to our ship, can't transmit data through the solar radiation."

"Hold your position" Shepard ordered, "we'll hit their back ranks."

"Wait!" Reegar shouted through the radio as a shimmer passed over the sun. "Watch your ass!"

"Dropship!" Grunt roared, almost louder than the missile explosions. Shepard rushed around into the courtyard only to watch a column of solid rock crush three Quarian corpses, blood oozing out from the burst bodies within. _Shit._

"That's going to slow us down" Garrus remarked as they took cover.

"Grab the demo charges in the buildings nearby!" Reegar instructed, "Use them to clear a path!"

"Of all the times we don't bring along Jax" Shepard cursed, seeing the increased readings of Geth activity. "All right, let's go find these charges."

The next series of minutes was spent navigating the battlefield amidst a hail of geth fire but eventually, they found what they were looking for. "Here" Shepard said, stepping over a geth corpse to reach the second demolition charge lying on a desk.

"Flamethrowers" Garrus muttered. "I'm Garrus Vakarian and geth wielding flamethrowers are my least favourite thing in the galaxy."

"Anything wielding a flamethrower really" Shepard remarked. "Those vorcha were an absolute pain in the ass when I was recruiting you. Still might come second to a Reaper though."

"A close second" Garrus amended.

"Look on the bright side, with the state your armour's in, you'll never notice the odd burn mark or two" Shepard teased.

"Well I was too busy cleaning yours to get around to that" Garrus grinned.

Shepard pocketed the detonator and turned her attention to a computer. "Looks like a data entry. Tali's field notes" she read, scrawling through the text. "Nothing of use in terms of combatting the sun's effect but…" Her voice trailed off. "'Therum'", she remembered. "Tali took inspiration from the mission where we first found Liara. I haven't thought of those days in so long."

"The old crew never really left," Garrus told her, "not truly. No Alliance and Council cover up will ever change what those days meant."

"Yeah," Shepard mused, "I wonder what Ashley would've thought of all this."

"She'd stand with you" Garrus instantly replied.

Shepard shook her head. "No she wouldn't. Ash was Alliance through and through, soldiering was in her blood, nothing would ever have made her give that up."

"Despite the glares she occasionally gave me while doing inventory when I first came aboard, I always admired that about her" Garrus said "Her simply indomitable streak of stubbornness, I joked once that she should've been born a turian, I think she almost shot me for that."

"Sensitive topic" Shepard replied to him. "But at the end, she came around. The entire Citadel, the melting pot of nearly every sentient race in the galaxy and Ash didn't even hesitate to lay down her life for it. I couldn't be prouder of her."

"We'll continue to honour her in preserving everything she protected" Garrus promised her. "Come on, Tali can't be too far."

Shepard nodded, they were wasting far too much time on sentimentalities as it was already. Shepard quickly planted the explosives and made short work of the wall. The other side of the wall was a fairly docile sight. Geth and Quarian corpses lay strewn, clearly this had been the site where the Quarians had dug in, a mobile armoury stood against the wall and a disassembled geth rifle lay on a desk for study. One Geth trooper was still at least partially functional, the light still blinking before it looked up to meet the end of Grunt's massive shotgun.

"Ha, ha" Grunt pronounced carefully before pulling the trigger, reducing the trooper's head to paste.

"Spread out" Shepard ordered, "let's see what we have here."

"Nothing that's in better condition than what we have on the Normandy" Garrus reported, checking a weapons locker.

Shepard found another of Tali's logs still active on a terminal. "Our ancestor's walked these halls with uncovered heads…" it spoke in Tali's voice.

"This place means a lot to them" Shepard muttered, "it's part of their history."

"Even so, why fight for something so clearly lost?" Garrus muttered in reply, kneeling beside a dead quarian. "Coming here was a waste, a pointless gesture of bravado and for what? An over-irradiated rock."

"It may be a rock, but it's their rock" Grunt growled back. "And to a species without even that now, it's worth everything. I wouldn't expect a turian to understand, your kind had half the galaxy to yourselves and rolled over in your 'Unification War'. You don't know what you have until you lose it."

"You feel strongly about this, despite not being born on Tuchanka?" Shepard asked.

Grunt exuded a soft growl. "Home isn't where you're popped out, it's what you fight for. I took on a thresher maw for my people."

"I grew up on Earth an orphan" Shepard replied, "I know it's the seat of humanity but honestly? The people who mean the most to me are all out here, Earth doesn't mean that much to me."

"Because you've never had to lose it" Grunt growled back. "If the enemy took your planet from you, would you still feel the same then?"

"I hope I never have to find out" Shepard replied honestly.

An interruption from one of the terminals cut through the tension. "Tali'Zorah to Base Camp, come in Base Camp."

Shepard crossed the room to the terminal, forced again to note the corpses Tali was trying to reach.

"Hello?" Tali pressed again, a touch of desperation entering her voice. "Is anyone there?"

"Tali, it's Shepard" she answered. "I'm sorry, everyone here is dead. Any survivors must have fallen back."

The hologram of Tali shook its head sadly. "We knew this mission was high risk" she sighed. "Damn it." It seemed after the Citadel and Freedom's Progress, Tali had gotten past expressing disbelief at Shepard's timely interventions. "We're in the middle of Geth space, what are you doing out here?"

"Was in the neighbourhood," Shepard remarked, "figured you could use a hand."

"Thank you for coming Shepard" Tali replied. "It means a lot right now to hear your voice."

"What's your status?" Shepard asked.

"Holed up in the Observatory" Tali replied. "Kal'Reegar and the other marines managed to get me in but I've got a lot of geth outside."

"Any of the marines left?"

"Reegar had a team when I made it in here" Tali said. "At least some of them are still alive, I can hear them firing at the geth outside."

"We'll join them, can you get the doors between here and there unlocked?" Shepard asked.

"Done" Tali replied after a moment. "Be careful Shepard and please, do what you can to keep Reegar alive."

Shepard nodded and headed through the now unlocked door, navigating her way down the ancient stone corridors before opening a door to meet Geth barrels waiting for her. Before she could react, a blinding blast of blue light lit up the recon drones and they fell to the ground, inoperative. Shepard whirled around, Garrus' overload already recharging. "The drones have optical camouflage systems" he said, tapping his visor that had allowed him to see through it instantly. "And here I was worried this would be too easy."

Shepard looked down her sights and dropped two more incoming drones before realising there was a much larger shape backing them up.

"Prime!" Grunt roared a hail of bullets from a Revenant assault rifle flew at them. "They're trying to slow us down!"

"It would certainly seem like we've lost any chance of the element of surprise," Garrus agreed.

"Any forces we encounter here are being pulled from taking the Quarians from behind" Shepard said. "Let's give them something real to shoot." She broke from cover as Garrus' sniper rifle rang out, drones falling from the sky, the armour piercing rounds drilling holes through them. The Geth may have been exceptional in mobilising resources to react to Shepard's team but even that wasn't enough and soon later, the Geth Prime fell to its knees before self-destructing, leaving only a puddle behind. "Come on" Shepard breathed, "the marines can't be far."

Another linear labyrinth of corridors later and they ended up in a room surrounded by blast shielding, the ever increasing volume of gunfire and explosions the only thing telling them they were on the right track. Shepard deactivated the lock down and the window panels slid down to reveal a metal monstrosity. Its massive head turned to face as its arachnid legs brought it around, black metal shining in the sun as it released a massive burst of power. "Oh crap" Garrus managed.

"Get down!" Shepard yelled as they dived for the concrete floor the blast shaking the foundations around them, dust trickling down from the ceiling.

"We need to move!" Grunt said as they quickly made their way out the door.

Shepard scarpered down the ramps to find a single Quarian still left alive, a medkit and a few remaining thermal clips scattered around him. "Over here!" He barked, "get to cover!" Shepard's introduction was interrupted as he launched a missile at the Geth before taking cover again. "Squad leader Kal'Reegar, Migrant Fleet Marines," he introduced, "we spoke on the radio."

A blast from the colossus hammered the wall, showering them with stone pebbles and making them crouch deeper behind their cover.

"We know she's alive?" Shepard asked.

Reegar nodded. "The door is reinforced, even the Geth will need time to get through it." He chuckled as he gestured to his rocket launcher. "And it's hard to hack a door when someone's launching these at you."

"Got a plan for dealing with that thing?" Shepard asked as more bullets rang out against their metal cover.

Reegar did something that appeared to be akin to a grimace behind his visor. "Standard protocol with something that size is to chip away at it, kill it with bug bites but that's been blown to hell; the colossus has a repair protocol, it's capable of fixing itself so you'll need to do something great to get destroyed, probably involves getting up close."

"Best way to do that?"

Reegar indicated. "The catwalk on the right. It'll expose you to the sun but in the middle you're a sitting duck for the colossus and the left leaves you vulnerable to being swarmed by the Geth, I found that out the hard way."

Shepard noticed a small line of blood leaking from his suit. "Garrus, medi-gel."

Reegar raised a hand in refusal. "No, combat seals have clamped down to isolate contamination and I'm swimming in antibiotics. You might need that more than I will. The Geth might get me but I'm not going to die from an infection in the middle of a battle, that's just insulting."

"Well then we need to get up there" Shepard growled. "Got any ideas?"

"Just one" Reegar replied. "I'm not moving so well but I can still pull a trigger and I've got a rocket launcher the sun hasn't fried yet."

"Fried?" Shepard asked.

Reegar nodded. "Heavy weapons operate on power cells, same as your shields; the sun chews through them."

Shepard checked her arc projector. "Shit" she cursed, Reegar was right; the weapon was non-responsive. "Well this just got a whole lot harder."

Reegar nodded. "With only small arms, you'll need to get in close. I'll keep the colossus busy, maybe even drop its shields. With luck, you'll be able to finish it off." He made to stand and fire another rocket but Shepard yanked him back into cover as a bullet blew a massive chunk out of the stone wall behind where his head had been.

"We don't have enough people for you to take one for the team," Shepard yelled, "stand down!"

"I'm not going to sit here while you run into enemy fire!" Reegar yelled back, "they killed my squad!"

"I lost my whole squad too" Garrus told him, "I know the pain you're in, but that isn't an excuse for firing blind. I'd be dead without Shepard rescuing me from that situation and you might be too, use your head marine!"

Reegar nodded slowly, conceding his words. "I'll cover the rear, with the amount of reinforcements you had to fight through to get here, there might be more coming. Keelah se'lai."

Shepard nodded as Grunt laid down covering fire, allowing her and Garrus to move up. "You didn't lose your whole squad" she reminded Garrus. "You still have Jax."

"And every day I thank gods I don't believe in for it" Garrus replied.

"Does he know that?" Shepard asked.

Garrus grimaced. "Nothing like the threat of death to remind you of your failings."

"You'll remedy this one" Shepard promised as Grunt joined them and they began siding up the catwalk. They reached the top and Shepard cursed. "Isolated cover" she reported, taking a look. "We take this one at a time."

"We're with you" Garrus told her.

Shepard moved up, fire peppering the rails all around her. She ducked into cover as a group of Geth emerged from a door on the side. "Just when I thought we were done with the flamethrowers" Garrus commented drily as he analysed them through his scope before dropping two. Shepard took advantage of their distraction and charged to the next spot, pushing further forward. There was a moment of silence before a massive high pitched whine like a ship hurtling out of orbit filled her ears even within the helmet.

Shepard clamped her hands against her helmet as reality rippled around her, her shields phasing briefly. _Siege pulse cannon_ she thought, forcing herself to calm. _It's the main weapon of the colossus, eight seconds to recharge, seven, six…_ "Move!" She yelled, pushing forward as Grunt switched to his assault rifle to be more effective from his rear position. They advanced and secured the door, also succeeding in putting themselves on the other side of a massive stone column from the colossus and allowing them a moment to breathe. Shepard examined the field over the railing as another geth squad pushed forward. She motioned Garrus and Grunt to ready themselves but the squadron moved past them entirely out into the main field. Shepard attempted to gun them down but they were already moving in between the cranes out in the middle, making it impossible to get a shot off. "Clever bastards" she muttered, "Reegar, you've got a squad coming at you, six hostiles. How many rockets do you have left?"

There was a moment of silence. "Enough" Reegar said finally. "I'll take care of this group, just get to Tali."

"Reegar" Shepard repeated, "how many rockets?"

Reegar exhaled. "Two" he admitted. It wouldn't be enough.

"Any sidearms?" Shepard asked.

"A marines-grade Shuriken."

"No way he survives that" Garrus said, affirming what all of them already knew.

"It's an honour to go down fighting the synthetic bastards" Reegar said. "Tali is what matters here."

"It's an honour you'll have to forgive me for denying you" Shepard said, making a snap decision. "Grunt, fall back. Keep Reegar alive, we'll handle the colossus."

Grunt and nodded and jumped the railing, charging like only a krogan could.

"Guess it's just us" Shepard said as she and Garrus approached the corner to see the colossus. She looked at him briefly, seeing a flashing alert on his omnitool. "Your shields."

He nodded. "They've stopped regenerating, sun burnt out the power core on the catwalk. Yours are taking a pretty long time to regenerate too. I have," he checked his display, "sixty-three percent left, should be enough."

"No heroics" Shepard warned, "that's an order."

"Yes Ma'am" Garrus chuckled, twisting around her and triggering an overload on the colossus's shields. For a few minutes, Garrus and Shepard worked side by side, Garrus whittling down the shields with miniature overloads and Shepard peppering it with bullets to prevent it for regenerating, it was working.

"Shepard!" Grunt roared.

Shepard paused for a moment. "Come in Grunt, what's your status?"

"The Geth are backing off!" Grunt yelled, "they're doubling back behind you!"

Shepard had enough time to turn around as a Geth rocket trooper came around the corner and fired. Shepard's shields absorbed the blast but the impact still knocked her backwards, right under the glowing eye of the colossus. Shepard's shields were down, the colossus' eye began to brighten as the hum of the pulse cannon charging up became a roar. "Katrina!" Garrus screamed, using her first name.

Shepard was barely aware of herself. She didn't think she'd ever heard Garrus use her first name. It was such a pity it'd been in a scream of fear; she would've rather liked to have heard it softly whispered in his gruff yet caring tone. It was only as the colossus released the blast did she feel the impact of a body crashing against hers and Garrus' pained grunt escalate to a cry. Shepard didn't have time to question why she could still move as she snatched her carnifex still strapped to her hip, aimed wildly at the geth trooper and fired. The bullet entered the tip of the rocket launcher and the trooper disappeared in an explosion of white flames that swallowed its squad. Shepard rolled to her feet as the colossus towered over her, ready to fire again. She dived out of the way behind cover before remembering why she was alone in it. "Garrus!" She screamed at the limp figure still lying on the ground. He had taken the impact of the colossus' main cannon with broken shields for her. Shepard couldn't do anything for him now as another surge of blue energy flew past her in cover. She looked around and cursed, she had dropped her assault rifle when Garrus had tackled her. She didn't have the time to aim with the sniper rifle for a proper shot and a shotgun from this range was useless, and it was suicide to consider charging forward. There was only one option now. Shepard bit her teeth as she opened her omnitool. "Mayday, mayday" she called, looking up at the textureless haze of the burning sky. She prayed the Normandy could hear her through the radiation, and that they would respond in time. "Can anyone hear me!?"


	10. Help Comes Calling

A/N: Hey guys, thanks for the patience and shit. Been a bit of a rough time on this end with some personal shit so not sure how quick the updates will be coming through but hoping this is spinning at least some of your wheels. Anyway here's a much larger chapter than my usual fare, let me know if you like it, cheers ~Small Mistake

* * *

The Normandy floated through the emptiness of space like a sail lost on the wind. Utter silence dominated, giving the entire scene an atmosphere of awe. Slowly spinning around, seeing all the stars out there, the ones he had been to, the ones he hadn't and the ones no one had been to, gave Joker a sense of purpose. The promise that adventure rested just beyond an FTL jump meant he never knew what was next, anything could potentially challenge his skills, force him to adapt and prove why the skinny little kid with the creaky legs kicked every single ass back at the academy. Sure, it wasn't as if he was going planetside and trudging waist-deep through muck, snow and ash just to get shot at, which sounded great and all but overall Joker figured he could live with that. Besides, he got to helm a much bigger gun than any of Shepard's team ever did.

A floating readout of all the Normandy's primary systems lay on his main screen, heat emissions were building up from the drive core but allowing the ship to idle in orbit like debris was off-setting the time before they'd reach worrying levels. Joker lazily swiped a command to acknowledge the latest op-check when a minor signal caught his eye. "EDI, what was that?" He asked.

"An apparent burst of activity from the planetary surface" EDI said. She had deduced immediately what Joker had been referring to by tracking where his eyes were looking, a habit to unnerved Joker to no end. "It was undirected, thus I relegated it as a secondary concern."

"It's more than anything else we've gotten so far" Joker remarked. "Did you record it, something caught on open channels might be of interest to Shepard, she's been gone a while."

"I am detecting multiple repetitions within the burst, it appears the communication is looping."

"A looping communication?" Joker asked sceptically. "There's no way the Quarians would leave that going and attract attention to themselves. Shepard's transmitters may not be powerful enough to break through the radiation, she might have left us a message for us to be able to hear her. Can you clear it up?"

"I am constructing an algorithm that should counteract the radiation's interference effect" EDI said as she applied it.

Joker's ears were suddenly filled with white noise and static as the patch began to apply. "Make a note to bring on a comms specialist" he said to no one in particular. "If the budget is short we can always replace the yeoman for them." The transmission began to become discernible words.

"…day, mayday" the transmission managed.

Joker's eyes widened. "That's Shepard! EDI, lock onto the source of that single, track its location."

"Done, opening a line of communication" EDI replied perfunctorily.

"Shepard!" Joker yelled. "What's your status?"

There was no reply.

"EDI?" Joker asked.

"I am detecting activity but the signal is degraded to reconstruct" EDI replied, "the Normandy's external sensory systems are not sufficient enough for this task."

"Bringing us over them for an orbital view" Joker said, knowing Hadley was already bringing up the image.

"Attention Crewman Moreau" EDI said. Joker missed the Alliance, being referred to as 'Flight Lieutenant' was so much cooler. "Maintaining a lock over Shepard's position will require constant engine use, risking overloading the stealth systems."

"We're not staying safe while Shepard needs support" Joker replied, moving the Normandy into position as the image began to enhance on his bridge. "Shit" he said, seeing the image. "That's some heavy artillery."

"By its firing stance, it appears to be a Geth Colossus" EDI reported.

"Shepard!" Joker said into his comm. "We have eyes on you, you can hear us but your signal is too weak for us to hear you. We can still track your activity though so give us one burst for 'yes', two bursts for 'no', do you understand?"

There was a pause, and then Joker saw one burst in reply.

"Great. You need extra fire support for the colossus?"

One burst again.

Joker nodded. "Okay, we're sending in the shuttle, we can land it close by if you keep the attention on you."

There were suddenly two bursts in response.

"No shuttle?" Joker asked. "Why?" He realised Shepard couldn't tell him and pressed a fist hard against his lips. "EDI, are you seeing any Geth anti-air defences?"

"Negative" EDI replied. "Although my targeting algorithms are unreliable through the radiation."

"Got something!" Hadley yelled. "We have movement down below, moving fast. By its size, it looks to be a dropship, too big to be a fighter."

"And still enough armament to blow our shuttle out of the sky" Joker exhaled. "How can we do this? We can't shoot them and we can't get help through to them."

"Incorrect" EDI clarified, "we simply can't get the shuttle down safely. However, there are many forms of help, our crew are still comprised of expert combat specialists."

"We can talk to them" Joker realised. "We can get a signal down to them. EDI, what other signatures are you reading down there?"

"General readings are inconclusive" EDI replied. "I need something specific to lock onto."

"Shepard, we need to know what you have down there" Joker spoke. "Heavy weapons?"

Two bursts of static.

"Do you have sufficient small arms ammunition?"

Another two bursts.

"Grenades?"

One burst.

Joker let out a sigh of relief. "So we have grenades at least, that's something." He hesitated for a moment. "Does your team have anything you don't?"

There was again one burst in reply.

"Heavy weapons?" Joker asked.

Shepard again confirmed through the static.

"We have grenades and heavy weapons" Joker mused. "EDI, call Jax up to CIC and prepare a station for him, Shepard needs some advice on how to best deploy some explosives."

About ninety seconds passed before the frantic taps of Jax's running steps echoed up the catwalk to the bridge.

"Where the hell were you?" Joker asked.

"Blame the elevator" Jax grunted, climbing down into the seat. "What have we got?"

"A Geth colossus has Shepard pinned" Joker called back. EDI brought up holographic schematics for the colossus as well as a blurred live feed of the one down below. "She's doesn't have enough ammo to take it down. What she does have is grenades, one of her team has a rocket launcher. How do we take it down with that?"

"You want me to bring this thing down with a rocket launcher and a few grenades?" Jax asked.

"No, I need you to tell Shepard how to do it" Joker replied, "we can't get the shuttle down yet. Also, whatever you think of has to destroy it completely, the damn thing comes with a self-repair protocol, leave anything left and it'll come back to full strength."

"Great," Jax replied sarcastically as he examined the projection. "Any other wonderful nuggets of information I should know?"

"Time is of the essence" EDI added for him.

"No shit" Jax muttered. The more he looked though, the further he despaired; he couldn't determine a way to defeat the tank with anything less than an entire arsenal of weaponry.

Joker watched as Shepard was forced to sprint under a hail of fire as her cover was obliterated. "Anytime now!" He called back.

"I can't do this!" Jax yelled back. "It can't be done, the shield strength of these things are too strong, there simply isn't enough ordinance to destroy it!"

 _Unless you don't destroy it_ Sensat's voice whispered in the back of his mind. _It's where you put the explosive that matters, not the size of it._

"I can disable it" Jax whispered. "Joker, put me in touch with Shepard and the team, I need to speak with them all."

Joker touched a series of commands and Jax saw the window open in front of him.

"Okay, I need you all to listen to me because you will have one run at this" Jax said. "And if you stuff it up, I'm pretty sure you're all dead."

* * *

Down below on Rannoch's surface, the environment was far removed from the peacefulness of space. Shepard huddled lower as the ground exploded behind her and she was showered in stone fragments rattling off her armour. "This sounds positive" she remarked.

"Better than hiding" Grunt rumbled, firing off two bursts with his vindicator. His Claymore shotgun was low on ammo; he had fired it so much the barrel was orange with heat.

"As much as I'll deny admitting this, I'm in agreement with the krogan" Reegar interjected, "we're too low on options otherwise. If it were any different, you wouldn't have told your ship about my rocket launcher at our disposal."

Shepard was forced to concede his words as she looked across the battlefield to where Garrus' motionless body was lying. She had fled the cover to draw fire and attention away from him, but every wasted second down here was a risk she couldn't abide. She opened her comm channel and closed it, sending back Jax her acknowledgment, praying this idea would work.

* * *

"Looking at the colossus' firing motion, there's a weakness" Jax said. "The main fusion cannon exerts far too much force for the body to remain stable, during every shot it has to brace its front legs against the impact. We're going to blow them off, the main cannon won't be able to fire then, in theory it should just shut down. I need all three of you in different positions. Whoever has the grenades needs to be as close to the colossus as possible, the one with the rocket launcher needs to on a different side of the colossus and the last needs to be dropping as many regular Geth troopers as possible to give the rocket launcher a clear shot. Give me a burst when you're in position."

"'As close as possible'?" Shepard repeated. "Shit, he wasn't lying about needing to be precise. Reegar, how's your aim?"

Reegar grunted, the effort clearly taxing on his infected body. "I can manage but the sun's beginning to shut the systems down, we need to kill this bastard fast."

"Affirmative" Shepard replied. "Grunt?"

"Already on it" the krogan replied, picking up his Claymore. "One way or another, they'll remember my strength."

"Mow them all down" Shepard ordered, sliding along the cover, waiting for the next break in fire to make a run forward, the direction every single instinct honed by her past as a street orphan on Earth screamed was the wrong way. The colossus released another blast and Shepard waited until the ground started shaking beneath her feet before she made to run again. She could feel the ash and dust from pulverised stone clinging to the skin on her face and griming her armour. _Goddamn it all to Hell, Garrus would've worked for so long on polishing it_ she thought with a sad curse. "We're in position" she said into her comms, knowing that Jax wouldn't actually be able to hear the words.

* * *

The single burst of surface comms activity registered on Jax's screen. "Roger that" he spoke, "here's how it's going to go down. The one with the gun pops first, kills as many standard Geth as possible. Once the field is clear, the one with the rocket launcher is going to fire. It's not going to do any damage though, instead it needs to get the colossus' attention so it needs to be good, we're talking a proper headshot. When the colossus wheels around to respond, that's when the one with the grenades has to move. You need to get right in underneath the thing and that's not an exaggeration; the shield strength is too high for you to penetrate with high kinetic energy weapons. You need to place the grenades, not throw them. When the colossus is bracing to fire, there should be a small pocket between the front legs; it's a structural weakness. That's where you need put the grenades, the more the better. You then need to fucking hightail it because there's also a chance the grenades might trigger a cascade explosion: the amount of energy required to maintain a damage repair protocol as well as fuelling that cannon with power has to be immense, there's a chance the grenades could set that off. Either the colossus will be destroyed or at the least, without its legs it'll be completely disabled, unable to fire." Jax took a breath. "That's the best I've got, the rest is up to you. Good luck." He ended the communication and ran a hand over his mouth, there had to be more he could do. "EDI, that rocket launcher, we use the ML-77 class, don't we?"

"Yes" EDI confirmed. "But as Shepard took the Arc Projector with her, the rocket launcher is likely to be used by the Quarians, who employ an almost identical model."

"Perfect" Jax said, "can you lock onto its signature?"

"What are you thinking?" Joker asked.

"The ML-77 is a homing missile launcher" Jax replied, sifting through data screens. "Targeting systems on the launcher feed data through a remote network to a receiver on the warhead which then directs the payload. Any remote network can be hacked. I'm going to make sure that missile locks onto the colossus' head, it could possibly veer off for a random trooper otherwise. I just need to lock onto that network first."

"I have established a tenuous link" EDI stated, "patches of corrupted programming indicate the launcher is suffering from multiple breakdowns due to radiation damage."

"Can you fix it?" Jax asked.

"Rewriting the software is a simple procedure but the upload presents difficulty given the strength of the connection" EDI explained. "In its current state, there is no guarantee the missile will reach its target, or even properly recognise any targets."

"Begin the upload" Jax said, "I want to take over that launcher's targeting systems and direct that missile into that Geth's ugly head myself."

"Link established" EDI said, "uploading software patches."

"It's taking too long" Jax growled, looking at the expected completion time. "Can we tell Shepard to wait?"

"Geth are keying into the Quarian's comm channel, they're running interference" Hadley called. "And we can't reach Shepard to establish a new one."

"Shit" Jax hissed, watching the upload slowly tick over percentages, the speed constantly changing.

The leather of Joker's arm rests groaned a little as he gripped them, leaning forward in his seat.

"The first team member is engaging the standard troopers!" Hadley called, "as soon as they're down, the missile is going up!"

Jax was awfully conscious that everyone in the CIC had stopped what they were doing and were watching his plan unfold. His hands were balled into fists, his chest was tightening, every breath was becoming harder to take than the last.

"Come on Jax" Kelly whispered. "You can do this."

"Geth are down!" Hadley called.

"Upload complete" EDI interrupted. "Link established."

A window to a brutal war-torn battlefield popped up on Jax's station. Geth and Quarian corpses were littered around craters and scattered debris. Bright blue tracer rounds from a Vindicator were streaking across the screen as one final trooper fell apart. Jax adjusted the awry targeting circle back onto the colossus' head and locked it on. "Go to hell you heap of scrap" he growled, activating the firing prompt.

* * *

Reegar hesitated for a confusing second as his targeting system glitched in and out of operating status. He had a brief flash of worry he would have to aim it manually, which he wasn't sure he could guarantee in his condition with enough time but as the screen gave him his confirmation, his trigger finger clenched and the missile popped out. Reegar watched as it slightly adjusted before rocketing home, slamming into the side of the colossus' head as it bore down on Shepard's cover and exploding in a burst of blue light. As the smoke cleared, the colossus stood with it's head slightly awry from the impact. It pulled its head back into alignment, bringing its optical sensor around to locate him. Judging him as the more pressing threat, Reegar watched as its body rotated to line up with the head, and then the two front legs placed themselves hard against the ground in a brace. The white glare of its head began to brighten. Reegar squeezed the trigger again only for a warning on the screen telling him the targeting system had failed. "Ah hell" Reegar muttered, looking back up again. He let the launcher fall to the ground, discarded. "Keelah se'lai Tali."

* * *

As the colossus braced and locked into its firing position, Shepard moved. She rounded out of her cover and leapt over the stone bench, sliding over the next one. She could see the white light brightening above, locking onto Reegar. She detached the two grenades from her belt and activated them both, not risking the trigger mechanism failing on one. She made it straight under the colossus, looking up for the opening Jax had talked about. Just before the legs integrated into the body, there was a widening in between them, a ripple of heat caused the air to shimmer there, drawing her attention and alerting her of its purpose. An exhaust vent, _of course_ , there was no way the Geth would've overlooked a structural weakness. A fusion cannon would generate immense amounts of heat, a vent at the base of the neck in a pocket between the front legs was likely to be safe, after all who up to this point would be mad enough to approach a colossus from the front, not to mention be lucky enough to survive it? Shepard jammed the grenades against the vent with a cry, her hand scalded even through her armour. She ripped off her gauntlet desperately as she ran, the opposite direction this time.

"Shepard!" She heard Grunt yell as the grenades detonated.

A series of explosions travelled up the colossus' neck, ripping it apart in consecutively brighter flashes of white light before the detonated capped back on the energy source within the body. The entire battlefield disappeared in the blast of light, so strong that even Reegar was forced to hide his face from behind his polarised visor as the shockwave threw him to the ground.

* * *

The entire CIC burst into cheers and celebration as the Geth signature vanished, swept away by the readouts of the detonation. Hadley was shaking hands with Matthews in glee as he was recording the orbital view of the detonation, a small white spec amongst of a planet of stale yellows and off-tinge browns. Jax could only manage to exhale as his head feel back against the chair, somehow being up here was worth as much stress as being on the ground. He took a few more deep breaths, relishing his memories and lessons that had taught him so much, made him able to save the people he cared about from threats impossible to handle before. "Thank you Sensat" he breathed before he felt congratulating hands pulling him out of his chair, EDI deactivating his station as the CIC crew all congratulated him, patting his shoulder and shaking his hand. Jax actually found himself sharing their joy, revelling in the success of the moment, despite the fact he had seen them by nothing more than the diamond logo on their shoulders, each and every single one of them were people, and they all saw him right now in this moment as a friend. Jax felt surreal in amongst their atmosphere and finally allowed himself to raise a hand and whoop to their cheers. They began to disperse, but not before Jax caught Kelly's eyes through the crowd and shared a smile so warming, he knew he'd be smiling at the memory for a long time to come. She blushed, and then returned her attention to her station.

Joker meanwhile hadn't risen from his chair, although no one expected him to. He kept stubbornly running his scan for life signs or communication signatures against the radiation. "Come on Shepard, where are you?" He muttered, refreshing the scan.

"Heat emission capacity at 90%" EDI warned, "we will not be able to further avoid detection for long, with Geth reinforcements incoming, we be forced to leave this sector soon."

* * *

Back on Rannoch, the effects of the blast were much more personal than an orange view screen. When the light finally cleared and the dust whipping at any loose end of his suit fabric died down, Reegar pulled himself up and looked around.

Grunt was pushing himself back to his feet, having also been thrown to the ground by the force of the blast from his closer uncovered position. He pulled a piece of metal out of his bicep and looked around. "Shepard!" He roared, only his echo returning to him.

The door at the far end of the compound slid open, revealing a purple figure within. "Tali!" Reegar exclaimed, although he could only a manage a limp, still clutching at the wound on his torso that was restricting his movement.

"Reegar!" She exclaimed, running to him. She activated her omnitool and applied another sealant to his injury, as well as transferring her own stocks of antibiotics and analgesics. "I saw the whole battle from inside, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, thanks" Reegar managed. "Where's the commander?"

Tali looked around. "Shepard?" She activated her omnitool, her old distrusting nature from her days dealing with the less savoury elements of the Citadel's criminal underworld had caused her to record omnitool signatures so she could track them within a close proximity. It was about to pay off again. "This way!"

Reegar and Grunt followed her as she approached a sheet of metal which had landed just on the other side of an isolated spot of cover. "Here" she said, indicating the sheet. Grunt quickly shouldered his way past her and gripped the edge of the sheet. Reegar watched as the muscles in Grunt's arms began to twist, the network of veins beginning to bulge as his expression tightened in anger, his eyes narrowed and teeth gritted together. Blood oozed out of the puncture wound in his bicep as his growl began to escalate, the sheet slowly starting to rise off the ground, the metal beginning to warp under the immense power of his grip.

Tali and Reegar kneeled, seeing an uncovered human hand under the rubble. "It's her!" Tali exclaimed.

Grunt lifted the sheet, his arms holding it high above his head before throwing it off to the side. "Battlemaster" he said, reaching for her with blood running down his arm. She was lying face down and covered in dust and mire but it shifted as Grunt rolled her over, revealing Garrus' still body she had been protecting with her own. "Battlemaster" Grunt repeated, gently shaking her, "Shepard!"

Her fingers smudged in black and grey twitched softly before her eyes fluttered open, the green stark against the grey. "Garrus" she managed before fully coming to her senses and looking around, seeing the krogan and two Quarians looking down at her, Tali giving attention to Garrus before her omnitool buzzed to bare life, fading in and out.

"Come in… Shepard… where are you?" Joker's voice said. "Sound off if you're down there, one bust of activity. This is Joker, Flight Lieutenant Moreau of the Normandy, is anybody out there?"

* * *

"Is there anybody down there?" Joker repeated. He growled in frustration as the signs of any communication activity stayed frustratingly blank. He wasn't ready to think in terms of 'deathly silence' considering they had just made their commander essentially detonate a large bomb manually. Without even meaning to, his thoughts flashed back to Virmire, and Ash. She was always stubborn, almost turianly so, and when she had insisted he alter his flight path to extract Shepard and Kaiden and then leave the atmosphere, she had gotten her way again, one final time. To think of that as such a flashback, more than two years ago now, felt wrong. It was hard to look back at event so apocalyptic as anything but disturbingly recent. Joker leading a squad of the Alliance's best pilots, jockeys he'd trained beside at the academy as he punched a blast through Sovereign's dark heart and watched it explode in a hail of debris was not a memory he'd ever forget.

"Geth dropship has disengaged and withdrawn from the sector" Hadley reported, "preparing for shuttle departure."

"Wait," Joker replied, "we don't know what we're sending first. Get medical and recovery crews on standby."

The crowd had meanwhile fallen silent, Jax slowly stepping forward in dread.

"Shepard" Joker repeated. "We can't read any signs from up here, especially not with all the additional radiation from the colossus' detonation. Give me a sign, anything. Are you alive, are we clear for retrieval?"

There was another moment of dreaded silence.

Kelly stepped away from her station, seeing the signs of worry wracking Jax in his subtle tells.

"Is anybody out there?" Joker repeated as a burst of activity came from the surface. "Shepard!" He exclaimed. "Is that you?"

Another single burst was received with another round of cheers.

"Is the shuttle team cleared for retrieval?"

Another burst of activity.

"Do you need medical support?" Joker asked.

There was a single burst, and then a horrible second passed before they all realised there wasn't going to be a second one.

"Are you hurt?" Joker asked.

Two bursts rebuffed him.

"Tali?"

Another two bursts told him Tali was safe.

"Garrus?" Jax asked quietly, having approached Joker's station.

There was a single burst, and then another.

"Garrus is fine" Joker said to Jax before another burst made him freeze, and then another. They both knew what Shepard meant as another burst came in, and then another.

 _Yes, yes, yes, yes._

"Activate the shuttle immediately, bypass all pre-flight safety checks and regulations, my authority" Joker yelled at Hadley who was frantically following his commands. "Flight crew to medbay, Doctor Chakwas, get a big bag and get to the shuttle immediately, prepare to receive turian patient, condition; critical."

"I'm going down there too" Jax said, turning and pushing past where Kelly had come up to join him.

"No you're not" Joker told him.

Jax turned on him. "What?"

"I'm not moving that elevator for anyone but Doctor Chakwas" Joker told him. "The most crucial thing for Garrus right now is time and I'm not holding his medical attention for your emotions, the elevator is on the crew floor now and the only direction its going is down."

Jax almost sat down from the stinging truth in Joker's words, the light hearted quipping persona was completely gone as if a black hole had opened from behind Joker's eyes, consuming all the light in.

"I understand you care for him" Joker said, "but don't make the mistake of thinking you are the only one who cares for him. Realise where you're best serving him and right now what he needs is not a demolitions expert. You've played your part and if he does live, so much of it will be because of you but right now our stealth systems are at ninety-three percent maximum capacity and we have two Geth cruisers approaching Rannoch which will shortly enter firing range; we need to get Shepard, Garrus and Tali and then we need to get the hell out of this system."

Jax managed to nod, feeling so much like boy from Joker schooling him so severely. It was hollowing to feel so useless and rebuked after being so important and celebrated. Already the rest of the CIC crew were back at their stations, sharing information and back to their frantic routines, ignoring him. All except Kelly.

"Come on" she whispered to him, taking his hand.

Jax allowed himself to be led away, even though the act was only reinforcing his feelings of greenness and immaturity. He watched as the cargo ramp opened on the massive holographic representation of the Normandy and a holographic shuttle raced out. It was only then that the elevator finally rose to meet them and the sank down to Deck 3. Kelly followed Jax into the crew quarters as he sat on his bunk, the two crew members Kelly knew as Sarah and Vadim noticed them and kindly gave them the room. Kelly gave them thanking smiles before opening a footlocker and removing the blanket from within, wrapping it around Jax, whose eyes were still at the floor. "You're not Blasto" she told him, "every single person up there, Joker included, knows there isn't a single thing you could've done better. You know that too, you just need to realise you can't be everything on this team and that no one expects you to be."

"It's not that" Jax replied. "Back on Omega, as part of Garrus' crew, we were everything to each other. Between staking out gang hideouts, waiting for late night ambushes, we spent so much time with each other and missed a lot of time with our families that we became a family unto ourselves."

Kelly sat on the bunk opposite him, listening simply.

"I remember Erash teaching me the best ways to cheat at Quasar, Butler teaching me to make his fantastic pancakes with vorcha fat, Mierin showing me which markers to forge my ID with so I won't get poisoned at the bars who favour the Batarian syndicates." Jax chuckled a little at the memory. "I remember early on, I couldn't shoot worth a damn, I could build and lob a grenade but honestly, I could've missed a Krogan from five feet with a wide-spread shotgun. Garrus showed up at my door one day, took me for a ride, I was scared shitless he was going to kick me out of the team but he took me up close to the rock, where the engines and mass effect field generators make such a noise you can barely hear yourself think. It's good for battle training, makes it hard to concentrate, forces you to focus through the chaos. He lined up three targets, these bottles for me and I used up about four clips and missed every single shot. I almost decided to quit, save him the time to kick me out but he just gave me another clip, told me to feel the gun as not a tool, but part of me, a means to achieving my intentions. So I kept shooting, he kept watching and occasionally fixing my stance but often just dead silent as I shot for more than an hour until my shoulder was nearly purple from the recoil, it took a lot of time to fix my stance" Jax explained with a reminiscing smile.

"Did you hit the bottles?" Kelly asked.

"No" Jax replied. "After an hour of shooting, after I was exhausted from concentrating and sore as hell from all the recoil, I got so pissed that I did quit, swore black and blue at Garrus though I was only angry at myself for failing so badly in front of him. Told him I'd never give up his secrets and as soon as he dropped me back, he'd never have to see me again."

"What did he say to that?"

"He didn't say anything" Jax told her. "He showed me the truth. Those three bottles? These three fucking bottles of his? They were all decoys, holograms, I hadn't hit a single one because not a single one of them was real."

Kelly was confused. "So what was the point of it all?"

"It was a test" Jax explained. "He did it to every single one of us, it showed him two things. Firstly, it showed our skill but it also showed the kind of person we were. Now I may not have been like Ripper who took three shots and instantly called Garrus on his bullshit for all of them being fake but none of them kept shooting for as long as I did, none of them tried as hard as I did. He said it showed him how much I wanted to make a difference with this. Yeah, I had missed a lot in truth but I had improved as well, just from this one session. I spent an afternoon with him the next week teaching him to make homemade explosive round so the next time he gave me three bottles, I'd hit them all with one shot. He taught me how to focus my anger, use it to drive me towards achieving what I need, rather than just expending it on whatever was closest and leaving me feeling emptier. Back up there, when I realised he was injured, I just thought of those bottles and even though I wasn't as close to him as the others, there wouldn't have been any hesitation between either of us if we needed help and I've been treating him like shit. I don't that to be his last impression of me." Jax's head dropped. "I can't let him think he failed me, because it's me who failed him."

Kelly knelt forward, lowering herself so she could be in his eyeline. "Jax, I can't help what you might have done in the past but I can promise you, there is so much about you that is worth being proud of, the bad things you've done don't take away from good you are, everyone gets a little lost sometimes."

Jax finally looked her in the eyes with such a sense of longing Kelly almost felt her breath escape her but he couldn't maintain the contact before falling away again. "I know I've been lost. I know I've been fucked up and I know I've done shit that's not befitting of the person who I'm supposed to be, of who I should be."

"So what's bothering you so deeply?" Kelly asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Jax looked her in the eyes again and this time they did not stray. "After being so lost for so long, I'm not sure I know how to be found."

Kelly gave him a reassuring smile. "The way you find the find the path is the same way you lose it; you just stumble onto it."

Jax gave another of his almost-chuckles. "I have done my fair of stumbling."

Kelly cupped his cheek. "And now you're in a place you can call home." Jax looked at her briefly and before she knew it, she had traversed the distance between their lips and was kissing him and he was madly kissing her back, deepening as her arms linked around his shoulders. Jax's hands were on her hips. She rose and pushed against him, his fingers tasselling through her flaming red hair, he could see every detail of her in his mind as her succulent pink laps traced across his, each kiss sweeter than the last. Jax's hands ran up her body, firm beneath the uniform. He didn't really know what either of them were doing, they were both caught and swept up in this fiery moment of passion but Jax wouldn't have minded if it never ended. Her soft touch on his skin only served to inflame his passions, he could almost literally feel his heart swelling within his chest.

"Shuttle to Normandy" a voice called through the speakers, making them break apart with a startle. It was Doctor Chakwas' voice. "Prepare medbay to receive, I need the lab configured for surgery immediately, cranial cybernetic reconstruction required."

"Roger that," Joker's voice replied. "Mordin to assist."

Kelly looked back at Jax but it was clear by his eyes that their moment of wildness was over. "I want to be there" he said quietly.

Kelly nodded before a prompt on her omnitool drew her attention away. "Message alert" she read "priority one."

"Illusive Man?" Jax asked.

Kelly shook her head. "Aria T'Loak."

That got Jax's attention. "What does she want with Shepard?"

"It's not for Shepard," Kelly told him, "it's for you."

"What does it say?" Jax asked.

"There's a frequency for a holo-communication" Kelly said, showing the Jax the attached line with the message.

 _It's time to call in my favour._


	11. The Mission Comes First

"Move!" Karin Chakwas exclaimed, "get out of the bloody way!"

The nameless Cerberus soldier jumped aside at her outburst as she, Shepard and Grunt pushed hurriedly at the stretcher through the deck. Mordin had already configured the surgery for Garrus' injuries but there was much to be done yet. Shepard could barely control her breathing as she and Grunt transferred Garrus from the gurney, his head slightly shook limply from the movement, totally unresponsive.

"Excellent" Mordin thanked them, "now for investigative surgery, will need you to leave."

Shepard didn't budge. "I'm not going anywhere until I know Garrus is okay."

"Doctor Solus is right" Chakwas said, "you stay any longer and you'll contaminate the medbay."

Shepard left the medbay with a grimaced expression but promptly nonetheless. She made her way around to look in through the window as Mordin began efficiently deconstructing Garrus's armour.

"How is he?" A voice asked flatly at Shepard's side. Shepard almost jumped, focusing on Garrus she hadn't heard anyone come up beside her. It was Jax, his voice had been hollow, shaking slightly under the weight of the emotion he had been keeping back.

"I don't know" Shepard replied, the tone of her own voice surprising her at how similar it was to Jax's. "The colossus' blast was tailored towards shields, anything synthetic. Saving Garrus, he took a lot of fire from a Blue Suns captain named Tarak, we were forced to implant cybernetics in order to keep him in his own fighting state, if the blast disabled them, it's up to luck the extent of damage."

Jax exhaled. "Tarak, can't even remember how long we hunted that son of a bitch. How much damage are we talking?"

Shepard shrugged. "Cybernetics supporting his brain function? Could be any number of symptoms, all of them bad. We're considering memory loss, personality shifts, retardation, paralysis, and that's all just operating on the assumption he wakes up. Could just as easily be comatose indefinitely." Shepard was simply listing off facts, keeping her basic field medical experience at the forefront of her mind to stop herself from buckling. It wasn't working however, and each word expelled crashed back upon her like waves of pained realisation. "It all depends on the level of damage to the cybernetics, and how long Garrus's brain goes without the critical functions for. Right now all we can do is hope."

Jax nodded impassively. Over the table, Mordin leaned in closely as one of the robotic surgical arms lowered towards the top of Garrus' head.

"How long will he be in there?" Jax asked.

"I don't know" Shepard managed, dropping her head in a futile gesture to escape the facts. "I don't know anything all right Jax? I am not the be-all end-all figure of invincibility; I know sometimes it's hard to believe but so much of the time I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do. I only know what I can do, and I know what I can do because I've had to do it. I have to stop the collectors from harvesting humans because God knows why, but I can't do this alone. I need you all to have my back."

"I will" Jax promised. "Aria sent me a message" he added in a lower voice. "She's calling in her favour I owe her for finding Sidonis."

Shepard dropped her head. "Jesus does this mess ever end?" She muttered to herself. "Even in death he's still a thorn in my side." She raised her voice to reply. "What does she want?"

Jax shook his head. "Unknown. I've been given a frequency to contact, thought you'd want to be in for it, Aria respects you."

Shepard nodded. "Line up that communication EDI, it's been a while since I've had the pleasure of Omega's pirate queen."

"Belay that EDI," Joker's voice ordered in Shepard's ear. "Change of plans Commander, urgent message coming in from the Illusive Man, patching him through to the comm room."

"Looks like you're about to learn a bit more about you can do" Jax noted.

Shepard nodded, it was just another one of those days. Shit never came in evenly spaced periods, some days were as clear and idle as a third class private's shore leave and other days, life just decided to heap it all on with no end in sight. This day seemed part of the latter. "I'm on my way" she mumbled.

"I'll come with" Jax supplied.

Shepard took another look at Garrus, unconscious on the table. Under the anaesthesia, he looked so relaxed, so peaceful, the ever present wrinkles around his eye squinting through his scope weren't there in his slack expression. Everything about it screamed how wrong it was. Chakwas supervised as Mordin, taking the lead as the more specialised in alien biology, bent over to examine his work. The fingers of his white surgical gauntlets were stained blue with turian blood. Shepard couldn't watch but couldn't tear her eyes away. Chakwas noticed Shepard still at the window and waved her omnitool, tinting the windows of the medbay to black.

Shepard lost her breath as Garrus faded from view, replaced with only her battle-worn reflection. She realised she might've just seen the end of her last chance to ever Garrus alive again. She couldn't afford to think like that, after the Alliance, the friends she had fought side by side with for so long had failed her, Garrus had been by her side unwaveringly. The Collectors seemed so much a larger threat without him.

Shepard turned for the elevator, ignoring Jax's questioning look to find out what the Illusive Man had for her.

* * *

"Shepard, we caught a break. I intercepted a distress call from a turian patrol. They stumbled onto a Collector ship beyond the Korlus system. The turians were wiped out but not before they crippled the Collector vessel. I need you to board that ship and get some hard data on the Collectors. Find us a way to get to their home world."

Shepard narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure this information is good?"

The Illusive Man's artificial eyes glowed inhumanly. "Information is my weapon Shepard, it's good."

"How did the turians manage it?" Shepard asked.

"Reports indicate the hull is intact but systems seem to offline."

"Is it the same ship from Horizon?"

"Unknown."

"I read the algorithm EDI supplied to the GARDIAN turrets back when you faced them on Horizon" Jax supplied. "Cerberus' mandate is to capture alien technology, not destroy and EDI is Cerberus tech. GARDIAN is a laser-based system, near one hundred percent accurate. The targeting algorithm EDI wrote meant the turrets were aiming at points meant to cause the ship to lose power, to only disable it. If it is the same ship, the beating it took from the turrets while you fought the praetorian would go a long way towards explaining the state of it now."

"Regardless," the Illusive Man interjected, "we can't let an opportunity like this slip by."

"I have a man down" Shepard replied, "I'm not sure we can handle a high-risk mission right now."

"Specialist Vakarian, I already know" the Illusive Man's eyes glinted. "Miranda's reports filled me in. I'm sorry to learn of his condition, but this is why you recruited a team of this size Shepard, we both know losses will be inevitable."

"Don't downplay the value of him to my squad" Shepard warned. "I don't see us taking the fight to the collectors without him as a spearhead."

"We can debate the semantics of his personal and pragmatic value another time" the Illusive Man admonished, "but you have my coordinates and if you have any intention of making the sacrifice of Horizon's colonists worth anything, you will follow them." He ended the transmission without another word.

Shepard exhaled. "Joker, let's go further into the lion's den."

"Roger that" Joker radioed back and Shepard felt the subtle shift as the engines kicked in, leaving the Geth behind.

"My turn" Jax said, stepping up to the console. He opened his omnitool and keyed in the frequency from the message. Aria's silhouette shimmered into view, her expression angry. "Aria" Jax greeted curtly.

"Jax" Aria returned. "Thank you for getting back so promptly, it's good to see some people know where their loyalties lie."

"You sound more pissed than usual" Jax noted, "I take it that's what this call is about?"

Aria nodded. "Believe me, this is far from a pleasure call. I need anyone with a capability to murder for me right now and you are but a line in a long list of favours I'm calling in."

"Sounds serious" Jax remarked.

Aria nodded. "My place as Omega's ruler is under threat, I haven't had a challenger like this since my ascension."

Shepard's eyes narrowed, at a time where so many matters were becoming urgent, this was sounding like nothing more than an unnecessary distraction; Aria had a virtual army on her payroll, this hardly seemed like something that need bother her mission. "And why exactly should this matter to my crew?"

Aria's eyes grew hard as she fixated on Shepard. "How about because this entire shitshow is entirely of your doing?"

"Come again?" Shepard asked, surprised.

"It's the Patriarch" Aria told her. "Ever since your little stunt acting as his kraant, he's become emboldened. Rumours of him still wielding power spread and my enemies flocked to him. As my power grows, so does the list of people who would see it taken from me and that's become a long fucking list. I didn't realise the threat until Patriarch made his move yesterday, killing a group of my men and fleeing the station on one of my ships."

"What about that makes him such a threat?" Shepard asked.

"Because he took the Queencode with him."

Jax took a sharp breath. "The Queencode? That's actually real?"

"It is" Aria confirmed.

Shepard was confused. "What exactly this 'Queencode'?"

"The Queencode is a digital skeleton key of sorts" Jax explained. "It offers complete and total control to anything with Aria's fingerprints on it."

"And since there's no part of Omega I don't have my fingers in…" Aria trailed off.

"He essentially has taken total control of that station." Shepard finished. "Again, I fail to see how Omega's political affairs are part of my business" she continued, "I have a great advantage in not taking sides."

"One and again, this mess is entirely your doing Shepard" Aria hissed, "you made my greatest enemy a symbol of untold strength. Two, Patriarch knows he doesn't have the manpower to defeat me in a conventional fight, so he's being clever about it."

"What has he done?" Jax asked.

"He's making me look weak" Aria explained. "He broadcasts mocking messages over my channels to anyone who will listen and kills randomly. He shut off the life support to section seven yesterday, we've no idea where to start counting the dead."

"How many people were in section seven?" Shepard asked.

"The entirety of Omega is divided into a number of sections" Jax told her, "from engineering to the residential districts to Afterlife. Any of the residential sections can hold hundreds of thousands, millions maybe if you include the squatters and derelicts."

"That many?" Shepard asked, shocked.

"Omega prides itself on being able to pack a lot of scum into very little squalor" Aria replied. "The more havoc Patriarch causes, the weaker he makes me look and the less power I will have. Patriarch is relying on the people to rise up against me and descend into anarchy. Seven was a commercial section, one of my busiest ports. Lot of eezo and weapons go through there which Patriarch helped himself to. If he decides to hit a residential district next and put the squeeze on, well the bloodshed if I don't regain control quickly is going to be inconceivable."

Shepard thought briefly. "I'm sorry Aria, but my answer is no. Neither I nor my crew can help you."

"What?" Jax demanded, turning around.

"I have the collectors to worry about and I can't risk being dragged into a war of attrition when I need unfettered access to the Omega Four Relay" Shepard replied. "I'm sorry Aria but this isn't mine and I have more people to worry about. It's a very potential reality that after my next mission, we'll be making the run through and we don't know what we'll face on the other side. I won't make a promise I don't know if I can keep."

"With all due respect Shepard, I sent the message to Jax" Aria replied, "and if he wants the continued protection of his family, he will help me."

"Shepard I just can't say 'no' to this." Jax agreed. "You agreed to keep them safe."

"And through me, Cerberus is paying your family's protection fees" Shepard returned. "I'm sorry Jax but the Collectors are out there now and we need to strike. As for after, the Sahrabarik System holds the Omega 4 Relay, I can't risk being drawn into a war where my presence there may be compromised. Both Patriarch and Aria could make my life there a living hell. I'm not making this decision lightly, but it is an easy one."

"You'll regret this Shepard" Aria swore, seething.

Jax's own anger was barely being held in check. "Shepard, I would urge you to reconsider."

"I've made my decision" Shepard denied. "End communication." EDI complied and Aria's furious image disappeared.

"Send me then" Jax implored. "Make a shuttle drop and I'll call you when I'm ready to re-join the mission."

"The Normandy has one shuttle and we use it for every planet drop" Shepard rebuffed, growing impatient. "I will not hold up my mission for you for what could go on for a very long time and frankly with Garrus down, I need you to take his position in the gun battery, keep it to his standards."

Jax couldn't believe it. "But…"

"That's an order!" Shepard exclaimed, breaking her facade of calm. "Man your post Specialist Weaver and if and when I need you for missions, I expect you to be there 100%, do I make myself clear?"

Jax's expression hardened. He could feel the temptation to tell Shepard to go to Hell but now wasn't the time. The tension in his fist loosened. "Crystal" he replied evenly, leaving the room.

Shepard sighed as she watched Jax leave. The door closed and she rubbed her temples. Her job was an immense juggling act trying to keep everything afloat and all of them were knives. She knew she had done the right thing by the mission in refusing Jax and keeping the Omega Nebula as neutral space but at the same time, Aria was vengeful. If she won her battle then her first action would be to seek blood from everyone who she perceived as betraying her, a list that would include Jax and the person who kept him from joining the fight. _For fuck's sake_ she cursed softly, then instructed EDI to relay commands for Samara and Miranda to arm up for the collector's ship.

* * *

A floor below, Jax made his way through the mess hall. He stopped as he saw the blacked out windows of the medbay, leaving him with no Garrus and only his lost solitary reflection to go on.

"If I may" a raspy voice began, "you seem lost."

Jax turned around to see Thane, having emerged from the drier environment of life support to obtain a rations pack. "I know where I'm headed."

"Not geographically" Thane said. "Spiritually."

"I don't hold faith in any gods" Jax replied.

"One does not need to believe in the gods" Thane rasped, "nor be their most devout servant to lose their guidance. Belief is not consequential to follow the path they have set out for us."

"Spare me the sermon" Jax said, disinterested. "If your god were so interested in my following a path to goodness and grace, why is Garrus in there on a table like a fucking slab of meat?" He finished the sentence more savagely than he'd meant to.

Thane was unperturbed. "Kalahera, lord of hunters, give us prey to chase, but also give us predators to make greater demands of us. We cannot truly appreciate the preciousness of something until we have the threat of losing it."

"So you're saying Garrus is on the brink of death to teach me a lesson?" Jax asked, unimpressed. "Is this supposed to make me feel better?"

"You misunderstand" Thane said. "You expect my answers of the gods to be of redemption, that under their influence, life will only comprise of all good things. That is not life. My gods control all aspects of life and while I cannot speak for them, they do not exist to keep us safe. The hunt will sometimes leave us empty-handed, the wait will sometimes leave us alone and the hungry will sometimes starve."

"So your gods have control of everything and still allow that misery, doesn't that make them miserly pricks?" Jax asked sarcastically.

Thane blinked with his rear eyelids. "Think of every pain in your life; the first time you touched a hot pan, the first time falling off a scooter or the anguish of a loved one leaving your life. Were not all of these the catalyst for a means of improving your life? A parent wishes to see their child ascend to greatness, to follow a good path, they should not wrap the galaxy in safety netting and keep their child blind. The gods to me are no different. I may not understand them, I may even question the course they have set me on but never do I question whether or not there is a purpose behind it all. There are reasons for everything; why we were called to battle, why the events that test us occur, even for this conversation. It is up to us to find those reasons."

"And what if I don't find a reason?" Jax asked, looking back to the black screen where Garrus lay beyond.

Thane was silent for a moment. "Then it is your responsibility to make one. Justify what you are and what you've done by committing deeds that matter."

Jax's fist trembled. "And I suppose there's no better justification for all the bad shit than making sure the collectors end up as nothing more than a bad memory?"

"I do not have a planet anymore to value the way you do Omega" Thane told him. "But even if Kalahira offered to restore Rakhana from the distant shores in exchange for the souls the collectors seek, even then I would know what choice was right."

"But would you make it?" Jax insisted, turning to look at Thane. "I know what is right, but I also know what I want."

"Then you know the point of your conflict" Thane told him, stepping closer. "The question is not of what you should do but what kind of person do you want to be? Your answer will show you your path forward, I have aligned my path with Shepard's. I hope they do not conflict when you find the answer you seek."

"So do I" Jax replied, his back turned down the hall.

Thane blinked as he watched Jax leave before retreating back himself, he needed to account for Garrus' health in his prayers.

* * *

Joker felt a tightening in his stomach as the collector ship grew larger and larger in front of him. Even though the scans EDI was running were telling him the ship was powerless, even its image cast a shadow of dread over him. A ship just like this one had blasted his ship, his first proper solo helm command to smithereens, and Shepard had died in the process. _Saving me_ he thought, his focus lost for the moment. He wrenched himself out of his guilt and back into the chair, he was the best pilot the fleet had ever lost for a reason, he had to be there one hundred percent. He heard the padding of Shepard's armoured footsteps approaching up the walkway behind him. Joker steeled himself, forcing a breath inwards before locking down the emotion in his features as Shepard approached, he had to be the dauntless helmsman Shepard needed him to be. "We have a visual on the collector ship commander" he reported, turning briefly in his seat to face her. The N7 on her chest shone out proudly against the grey armour, her link back to the Alliance. The breathing mask was securely in place on her helmet held against her hip for the moment.

"Very low emissions" EDI added, "passive infrared temperatures suggest most systems are offline. Thrusters are cold."

As she spoke, Joker continued his approach, the collector ship's size ever expanding. One by one, the stars behind it were blotted out by its looming mass. Joker checked his scanners and his eyes widened at the distance that still lay between the two ships. "That thing's massive" he breathed, his eyes locating a wreck of a familiar design. "How the hell did the turians manage to take it out?"

Shepard could offer no answer as she also took in the massive structure as Joker brought the Normandy alongside and slowed it to a stop. The collector ship continued rolling on its listless idle in space, Joker keeping his distance. EDI refreshed her scans, informing them of the lack of any notable structural damage. A gnaw of doubt pulled at Joker but as he located an access route into the ship, he knew Shepard was beyond his capability to aid. "Rendezvous in 30 seconds Commander, good luck" he wished. Shepard touched his shoulder reassuringly, as if sensing his unease, then left Joker alone with the chirps and whistles of his sensors. He touched a command to lower the cargo bay doors for Shepard's shuttle and watched as the shuttle disappeared into the belly of the beast. The entire scene was… ominous. Nothing seemed right about this. Joker brought up the scans of the turian frigate and the collector vessel. The space around them was too clean, Joker had seen hundreds of dogfights, the space was always littered with wreckage and debris but this seemed almost organised, they had a completely unhindered approach on the way in. Something was just _off_ about all of this. EDI was still busy scanning the ship, matching it to that of the vessel from Horizon. Joker looked again at the turian vessel, examining the blast marks that had simply cut through the hull like butter, exactly like the Normandy. "EDI…" Joker started, "do you have access to classified Alliance data files?"

"I have a block that prevents me from revealing the scope of my access" EDI told him perfunctorily. "Do you have a specific query in mind?"

"Yeah" Joker mused, "very specific. Run an analysis on the electromagnetic profile of the ship."

"What do you wish to cross reference it against?" EDI asked.

"The collector ship that destroyed the original Normandy" Joker said. "I've seen this ship, I know I have. It's been in my dreams the last two years." Joker dipped his gaze as he said it, but also realised he had said 'the original' when referring to the SR1, not 'the real Normandy' as he had so often called it, often to just spite EDI.

"Scanning" EDI replied, sweeping the ship. In moments like these, even Joker was forced to concede her handiness.

The results came up on the screen, _100 percent match_. "Son of a bitch" Joker murmured, running a hand over his beard. "Put me in touch with Shepard now, we need to give her a heads up, something's not right about this. Get a message to Jax down in the battery, tell him to keep the guns warm in case we need them."

"Operative Weaver is no longer in the main battery" EDI replied.

"What?" Joker asked. "Well where the hell is he?"

* * *

The elevator door hissed open and Jack stepped out to the familiar sight of the cargo bay. She stretched her arms and felt both of shoulders click, waves of biotic energy rippled beneath the surface of the sea of ink on her skin. It was a satisfying feeling, the power to rip anything apart at her fingertips, satisfying to know she'd never be that scared little girl again, _Jennifer._ She was Jack now, and Jack was powerful, unstoppable even. She had just been up to the crew quarters to take a piss and now was descending into the red of the sundeck when she saw a shadow cross in front of her. She tensed only to find Jax leaving, stopping abruptly as they met eyes. "Hey" he quickly managed.

Jack's expression instantly shifted into suspicion. "Mind telling me what you were doing?" She asked.

Jax pointed over his shoulder. "Joker's put me on manning the main guns while Garrus is out of action" he replied flawlessly. _Too flawlessly._ "I'm just checking on the power subsystems before I let that thing come anywhere close to firing."

"Right" Jack said, not believing his bullshit for a second, no matter how close they were after their bonding trip on Illium. "Well next time you want in my space, you ask. I don't spend enough on underpants to have fuckers like you come and rifle through my laundry."

"Funny" Jax replied, in flirtatious bravado that was clearly feigned for anyone who knew him below the surface, he was not even close to this charismatic. "You never struck me as the type to wear any at all."

That earned a laugh at least from Jack. "Message still stands," she warned, "let me look for you next time."

Jax mock saluted her on his way out. Jack shrugged to herself, whatever shit he was getting into wasn't shit she had to worry herself with. She just managed to get comfortable on the cot when the Normandy shunted hard to the right. Joker was clearly needing to get them the hell out of Collector-occupied space and with Jax barely reaching the elevator by now, the thanix cannon was definitely being unused this time around. Jax managed to order the elevator to take him back to his post but not before an alert popped on his omnitool. _Explosive armed._ Jax looked up to see his reflection in the chrome surface of the doors. He knew exactly what kind of person he was going to be.


End file.
